Liz Settle joined Hearst UK’s Good Housekeeping magazine as managing director in 2023 and, over the last three years, she’s changed a lot at the 104-year old brand. She says 2025 was the “best year ever” for the magazine which posted its highest-ever revenue, achieving double digit growth on digital and print advertising, and increases in subscription and newsstand revenues: “AI is driving people to our brands, not away from them.”
Settle was in a great mood when she joined me on stage for the opening interview of this year’s Publisher Summit.
Two weeks before, the magazine had won Brand of the Year at the PPA awards, in London. Settle explained that the last time she was up for a PPA award she’d been pipped at the post by Peppa Pig magazine. “I was absolutely livid about it, so I feel finally vindicated!”
All of that might explain her buoyant mood. But it felt there must be more to it than a strong year and beating everyone’s favourite piglet. So I asked her why, when we’re more used to doom and gloom in the magazine business, she was so upbeat?
She listed three things.
Number one: “We have cool jobs. It’s still the funnest way to make a living.”
Number two: “I love my customers. They’re brilliant to hang out with. I think that’s why we’ve designed a product set that involves meeting our customers a lot. They come into the event space in our test kitchen twice a month, we hang out, we have book clubs, we drink wine, we enjoy each other’s company. I think that really matters. It really makes a difference.”
Number three: “I genuinely believe that this is the best time to work in magazines since the early noughties.”
The first two got an easy pass – working in magazine publishing can be a lot of fun and hanging out with readers is a big part of that. But,while I probably agree that now is the best time in a long time to be in magazines, that third answer needed some unpacking.
“I may have taken mind-altering drugs to make me think this, but I genuinely believe that the tides are turning in our favour if we choose to see it that way,” she started.
Leaning into magazine strengths
Settle has been working in magazines since the late 1990s and fondly remembers the ‘glory days’ of fancy editorial conferences, spa days and open bars. “That’s not coming back, but there are ways that you can win. You just have to seek them out.”
Central to her excitement for the future of magazines is Hearst’s own data that shows trust in magazine brands is rising at the same time it is ‘dropping off a cliff’ for social media platforms. “Nobody ever saw ‘As seen on Instagram’ on an advert. They say ‘As seen in Esquire’, ‘As seen in Elle’.”
She acknowledges that when it comes to advertising, magazines can’t compete directly with the platforms.
“That’s not a winnable game – we can’t win on reach, we can’t win on speed, we can’t win on convenience to trade with, we can’t win on precision targeting. We can win client-direct, small slices of big budgets are really material to us.”
Settle said, at a time when ‘Google doesn’t love us any more’, relationships really matter: “And the really good news is – and I really believe this – Chief Marketing Officers and Marketing Directors are sick of performance marketing. They are bored. They want to work with people who can make something magical, that adds up to greater than the sum of its parts. We as publishers and brand owners are uniquely positioned to still do that. Everything is flowing in our favour.”
On the reader side, from rising consumer interest in real-world experiences to being the AI antidote, magazine publishers have an opportunity to compete. “All of the stuff about AI is driving people to our brands, not away from them.”
Secret of Good Housekeeping success
Settle commiserated with publishers that have spent years chasing ‘dirty traffic’ or ‘cheap revenue’. She said: “if you have neglected your brand’s unique tone of voice, positioning, and quality… I’m sorry about that, you’ve made it hard for yourself.”
She explained that the secret of the success GH saw in 2025 and beyond is to believe in your brand and know your customers well enough to tap into their willingness to spend on ‘the feeling of belonging’. “They are keener than ever to find places where they can connect with people who are into the same stuff as they are . The world is designed to keep them apart; I think we are well placed to counteract that.”
This is a fundamental principle of magazine publishing for Settle. “That’s what we used to do in the old days,” she said, “That’s always been our business, we just need to remember how.” She put a positive spin on the state of magazine publishing, saying we need “PR not ER”. For her, belief in the business is key, particularly the belief that it’s possible to win. I have a brilliant CEO, Katie Vanneck-Smith, and she is made of belief. Losing is not a thing she’s really into, so we believe we can do it by sheer bloody-mindedness.”
Part of that belief is understanding that perfectionism is pointless.
“Don’t wait till it’s perfect, launch it, have a go. I’m not here to tell you that everything we’ve tried has been successful; it hasn’t, and we have had really difficult trading months, and stuff has gone wrong. But if you’ve got enough bets on something, one is going to stick, and you only need one line to turn green for people to suddenly have their heads up, and they’re like, actually, look, we’re winning.”
Another part of it is paying attention to the bottom line. Since Settle joined GH in 2023, she has made changes to personnel, positioning and the magazine’s product line up. She said that people might think of GH as a big brand with tons of cash to throw around. “That’s not true; cost discipline was a big part of the guardrails put in place with what we tried to do.”
One of 2025’s innovations was a Christmas TV Guide, published in print. “In the old days, it would take a year-and-a-half and you’d spend a bazillion pounds. We just sort of did it.
“I think now, as publishers, we can do things on the cheap. We’ve been poor for a long time, we’re good at this now. So I think that we keep the stakes low, and then when the wins come, it’s better.”
Listen to the whole episode above, or search MediaVoices’ ‘The Publisher Podcast’ on your podcast app of choice.
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