Saturday Magazine

When the Guardian announced that many of its long-standing Saturday print supplements were to close and be replaced by one single magazine, there was a collective gasp. The brief was to create a new weekly magazine that appealed both to loyal print readers and to a new audience - and so the new Guardian SATURDAY magazine launched in September 2021.

SATURDAY brings together the very best features, long reads and interviews alongside unrivalled culture, books, travel and lifestyle coverage collected together for the first time in a super-sized, beautiful magazine designed to last all week. The magazine launch was instantly successful. Bucking the trend of declining print sales, the Guardian increased its Saturday newspaper market share and acquired thousands of new subscribers as well as a 1.6% increase in copies of the Saturday newspaper sold at newsstand. The launch saved money for the Guardian and added readers - no small achievement in the newspaper industry these days. Guardian readers are intelligent and discerning. They like to be challenged and amused. They want lifestyle features they can relate to, smart books coverage, top culture tips and sustainable travel and shopping suggestions. SATURDAY delivered all of this and more with its witty, engaging, eclectic and inspiring weekend content right from the first issue. Greta Thunberg was memorably photographed for the cover of the first issue with crude oil pouring down her face. We launched new and instantly popular columns including Dining Across the Divide (where people from different political backgrounds break bread); You Be The Judge (readers settle a domestic dispute once and for all); and Flashback (recreating a photograph from a celebrity’s past). Beloved in their print incarnation, these regulars are also read online by hundreds of thousands every week, alongside other popular SATURDAY regulars including the magazine’s famous Blind Date column, Experience and our Celebrity Q&A. Other issues in the year since launch included global exclusive interviews with Olena Zelenska, wife of the Ukrainian president, and Abba, for the greatest reunion in pop. We’ve created special editions that showcased the world’s best protest photographs, and run life-changing lists from 60 quick ways to Shift Your Vibe to 100 Ways to Improve Your Life Without Really Trying. We create a visually arresting magazine that looks like nothing else on the market. Week in, week out, the original photography leaps from page and screen. Online, SATURDAY delivers some of the largest reader numbers and the most engaged audiences on theguardian.com, one of the world’s biggest news platforms: on average 5 million people read the magazine’s journalism online every weekend. Every week since launch SATURDAY has delivered agenda-setting magazine journalism in print and online: articles that linger in the mind and are spoken about, and followed up elsewhere.