The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 72

Medial? Monday December 15 2003 The Guardian Entertainment programmes who makes and who imports KEY 35 Total number of local programmes by title 5 Total number of foreign programmes by title Red and read all over Readers of Red were once an elite group of 'middle youth' women. Now their numbers have burgeoned and the magazine is about to expand well beyond the UK, its editor tells Ciar Byrne msm mm ie sis France 35 5 27 4 "27 6 18 8. 19 13 US 13 2 13 5 17 10 19 10 30 8 Germany 59 5 67 9 70 18 61 21 48 19 Netherlands 106 8 112 9 110 9 "111 13 104 19 UK 91 8 93 12 80 7 84 10 96 8 PHOTOGRAPH: MARTIN GODWIN Halpin 'You have got to have a vision' Source: EurodaiaTVWRaTNS Prima Time themselves. In all-important markets we're there. It's like going into hospital.

You don't want a doctor to operate on you who's never done it before. It is not a simple job. If a show is made badly, it devalues the format. We basically give a warrant' to the channel. They are buying past experience." Nearly 300 people work behind the scenes on a series of Pop Idol, and they are mostly freelance.

There is no miming, the music is real, and there are no cuts or delays as cameras zoom in on judges. "It's as smooth as it can be, but this is live television, it's a roller-coaster and expensive to make," says Boyd. The Fountain Studios in Wembley Park, north-west London, where Pop Idol and World idol are staged, is the largest available in London. ITV (bowled over by the Sydney Opera House staging of the Australian version) would have loved to fill the Royal Albert Hall for World Idol, but it is booked up three years in advance. Claire Horton, the series producer, briefly advised the Australians, and also flew between Britain and Germany during the 15 weeks the German version was in production.

It is a two-way trade, though. The costume designer on the ITV Pop Idol was brought over from the German series, which' also had lighting that iddle youth was the buzzword in glossy publishing in the late 90s. It referred to an elusive and much sought-after phenomenon in the magazine world a previously untapped group of readers. But when Red magazine was launched in February 1998, aimed at this new breed of thirty-something women who could afford plush pads and designer clothes but were still kicking up their heels, they were an elite set. These days, post-Bridget Jones and Sex and the City, it is no longer considered unusual for women in their 30s to break the mould set by their mothers and grandmothers by pursuing careers, delaying childbirth, and retaining their lust for life.

Red's catchphrasc up without growing old" -has become the norm. Many of our biggest female celebrities are in their 30s --Cameron Diaz, Kylie Minogue, Sarah Jessica Parker and Friends star Courteney Cox women who are as likely to appear on the covers of magazines aimed at twenty-somethings as on the front of Red. Publisher Hachette Filipacchi UK believes the time is now ripe to turn Red into a global brand on a par with its international bestseller Elle, which is published in 37 editions worldwide. A year after Hachette paid Emap 17m for Red which was launched as part of a joint venture between the two companies other outposts of the French publishing giant's media empire are now waking up to the title's appeal. The expansion of Red will start in the "Anglo-Saxon territories" -northern Europe, Scandinavia and America where the concept is most relevant to existing magazine markets.

But before Red goes global, editor Trish Halpin who has just won the coveted British Society of Magazine Editors' women's glossy editor of the year award wants to cast off the middle youth mantle. "The people working on the title in its launch phase recognised that there was this new generation of woman coming through who were probably delaying childbirth, much more independent, probably university-educated and not conforming to traditional roles at home or work. "This phrase 'middle youth' came up. Obviously it was a very strong phrase that caught the nation's imagination. It identified the title as addressing a genuinely new market, which was very exciting in publishing because that doesn't happen that often.

"Today, we don't really use the phrase middle youth, because I strongly believe that it's not a niche any more. At the time, it was quite an exclusive group of women who fulfilled those criteria, but now I would say that lifestyle, that attitude is much more in the mainstream. The Netherlands scores highly because of the trail blazed by John de Mol, the founder of Endemol, the company behind Big Brother. The losers appear to be France and Germany, where the number of imported programme formats has soared. The table shows that America was taken by storm foreign entertainment formats went from two in 1998 to 16 in 2001 but it is fighting back.

Why is there such demand for UK shows? Mike Phillips, the globe-trotting managing director of international television at BBC Worldwide, says: "It's just a much more rich and varied environment here. In my view, the whole recent success is helped by three shows, Who Wants to be a the Weakest Link and now Pop Idol. They changed the perception of British television. "Getting into America is enormously important. If you get something on a significant network in the US, the ability to license it elsewhere is greatly enhanced." BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the corporation, pays BBC production teams to make pilot tapes of new formats, to pitch both to BBC channel controllers and overseas broadcasters.

Phillips recently took five entertainment pilots none of which has yet been seen here to America to pitch. "I'm in no doubt that it's very important to have a tape, really valuable. The networks are so used to formats being pitched. We have some-thingbetter the programme and therefore we have the answer to questions such as, 'What happens if there's a You must remember that right across the world everyone is in incredible competition in a multichannel world, and everyone is looking for a ready-made hit." Fremantle's London-based subsidiary, Talkback Thames, has an army of executive producers and other experts who travel the world. So does the BBC.

Alan Boyd, president of world-wide entertainment at Fremantle, says: "Other countries watch the US and Britain very closely. They have spotters, and within days a new show will be on their desks. Currently it is happening with Wife Swap, that's very hot, and with How Clean is Your "Hollywood is really a fiction business," observes Phillips. "They have very little experience in LAof making entertainment shows, or reality television. Nobody has done it for years.

That's a big plus for us. Britain is seen more and more as a place where these programmes, and cross-genre ones such as Pompeii, are made." But control is crucial. Boyd says: "They are buying the knowledge. We send our executives, tell them the tricks, for example how to choose judges. There are only a few places, such as Iceland or Kazakhstan, where they are allowed to make it practise what her magazine preaches and on no account call the office from the labour ward.

In fact, Halpin has lived the same lifestyle as her readers for much of her magazine career as deputy editor on Emap's twenty-something title New Woman before she joined Red, and before that as deputy on the young women's title Although she was sad to leave Emap after nine years in October 2002, she says the only real change as far as the magazine's staff were concerned was the physical move to Hachette's new HQ just off Park Lane in London. Working for a smaller company means decisions arc.madc more quickly, and while 2003 was a year of consolidation for Hachette UK, the company has several new projects lined up for 2004. There are advanced plans to launch a British version of the French women's title Psychologic within the next two months a magazine characterised by long reads about the wellbeing of mind and body. ecn title Elle Girl -launched as a quarterly and taken bi-monthly by Hachette earlier this year will go monthly from February taking it hcad-to-hcad with Cosmo Girl, and Inside Soap magazine is upping its frequency from fortnightly to weekly. When Halpin inherited Red from its previous editor, Sally Brampton, in 2000, the title was floundering and its circulation was haemorrhaging.

The next ABC figures, due in February, are expected to deliver the magazine's highest circulation yet. Having recorded an average circulation of 189,857 in the six months to June, beating its main rivals She, Eve and In Style, Red could even break through the 200,000 barrier for the first time. Halpin, who modestly describes herself as "one of the least ambitious people I and claims it is ironic that she has ended up in such a plum job, attributes this success to a simple formula. "You have got to have a vision and be a good manager to be a magazine editor and to be able to sell the damn thing." "Now everyone has Nigella Lawson dinner parties, everyone can have a Habitat kitchen and oak flooring and a Gucci handbag -that lifestyle has become the mainstream. Red has become broader and a more commercial magazine to reflect that." So who is the typical Red reader? She could be anywhere from her late 20s to her early 40s, with a median age of 33, says Halpin.

"She is someone who is smart, intelligent, also kind of funny and down to earth. She'll go out with her friends on a Friday night and have a few drinks in a wine bar, but her heels will be killing her by 11 so she'll go home, while a Cosmo or a Glamour reader would be hitting the club afterwards." About 60 of Red's readers arc married or in a long-term relationship leaving a significant proportion of singletons. The divide between marricd-with-kids and single-but-looking might'seem too huge for many a magazine editor to bridge, but Halpin is unfazed. "It can be a very polarising market it's the kids no kids divide, or the married still single divide. Those arc two very clear defining factors in a woman's life and how she perceives herself and where she is in her life stage.

"We're not very overt about children you're aware that some of these women have children, but the focus isn't about them, it's about the women, and the same with the relationship side of things. What we try to do is unite all those readers through the emotional feeling of the features." While the Cosmopolitans and Glamours of this world deal in how to snare a man, have mind-blowing sex and shop for Britain, Red is more interested in a woman's family and friends, worklife balance and fertility issues. At 36 and expecting twins her first children Halpin freely admits that she is the epitome of the Red reader. "I think I'm very much in the Red lifestyle, where your social life is about having friends round for dinner or going for a drink with a girlfriend, or getting away for the weekend to a nice hotel." After three years as editor, Hatpin's maternity leave starts this week, but she promises she will 'We basically give a warranty to the channel. They are buying past experience' became the model for subsequent British series "because it was wonderful," says Boyd.

"We make tweaks all the time," he points out. "We've added in from the American version a judge's choice, the wild card." But what remains unaltered is the secrecy about how the audience has voted, which means the production team is in the dark until seconds before it is announced. Executive producer Richard Holloway is the only person with access to a locked room where the computer logs the votes. And in the current second UK series the outcome is far from predictable as when the public kept Mark in, but voted out bespectacled Chris, who had the judges' art of doing live television has been largely forgotten in America. That's why Brits run the show there," says Bpyd.

"World Idol will be like an Ikea kit for the other broadcasters. Some are taking Ant and Dec as presenters, others are flying in their own. I just hope bits aren't missing.".