Heat Magazine (Heat Magazine)

Member Name: BBTHREE

Product:	Heat Magazine
Date:	10/02/09 (187 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Light Hearted, Enjoyable, Full of Celeb News and Gossip

Disadvantages: Not exactly hard hitting high brown journalism

I love magazines, and use them as a way to chill out and relax. My favourites are the "celebrity gossip" type magazines, and the one that stands out from the many available is "Heat" magazine.

Heat magazine is published weekly, (in newsagents every Tuesday) and gives its readers details of the latest celebrity news and gossip. It was launched in February 1999 and didn't do so well initially as it was slightly more upmarket than it is now, and was more about cinema releases etc.

But after the circulation dropped (to around 60,000), an interview with Victoria Beckham saved the magazine and launched a whole new celeb obsessed culture. I believe Heats current circulation is around half a million plus.

Heat magazine is filled with interviews with high profile celebrities, such as reality TV stars, and WAGS etc, and the main thing about Heat magazine is that I believe it doesn't take itself too seriously and everything is a little bit 'tongue-in-cheek'.

The articles featured aren't about breaking world news and political events. They like to name and shame celebrities and catch them when they are off guard, and so you can see people getting their cars clamped or without their make-up, or falling over drunk, they show orange fake tan lines, or sweat patches.

Juvenile? Yep!, Pointless? Probably!, but it passes the time, and it's hard to look at these pages without smiling.

I don't think Heat was originally aimed at either just men or women, but lately more and more fashion pages have appeared and so I guess it's now directed at women, though I do know men that read it and enjoy it.

I am not sure if there is particular age range that this is aimed at but my best guess is between teenagers and 40, though I have seen older relatives giving this a go and enjoying it.

Heat has interviews with celebrities, and the Heat interviewers ask the celebrity the questions you are thinking but are convinced a journalist will never dare ask, but they do and get away with it, as its all done in a humourous way.

Heat also has some features that appear every single week, such as "10 questions we always ask" (which features a different celebrity every week), "Torso of the week" - which is a poster of a hunk, and "What were you thinking?" - which shows where celebrities have got their fashion VERY wrong.

Another regular feature, at the front of the magazine is the "Letters" page. I absolutely love the letters page. Unlike other magazines which seem to filter out the nicer ones suitable for print Heat just print a selection of what comes in, so these vary from suggestions of a celebrity looking like a particular Sesame Street character, to someone explaining why the interview they read in Heat the week before, changed their perception of that celebrity. These are printed whether positive or negative about a celebrity, or indeed positive or negative about Heat itself.

A less regular feature, but my personal favourite is "Stars dress up" which has had such classics as Richard and Judy 'doing' Ozzy and Sharon, or James Corden 'doing' David Beckham.

Heat also tells you the TV listings for the coming week ahead (beginning on the following Saturday) and points out what to look out for, and also gives music, book and DVD reviews.

Heat is currently priced at £1.65. This is cheaper than what I feel is the best alternative (OK), and there are cheaper gossip mags such as "Star" around but I just don't feel that these are as good as Heat. Heat is quite addictive, and even in these times where I am trying to cut back on spending, and I still but this every week.

Overall, if you want to read about what's going on in political world, and discuss the credit crunch etc, then this isn't the magazine to buy, but if you want a bit of pointless escapism then this is for you.

The covers alone sort of set the tone for what is inside the mag, which gems such as "Skinny Celebs", "Stars looking Rough" etc. Beware that this magazine in particular, is quite fickle, and their cover star one week, will be lambasted a few weeks later because they have made the wrong fashion choice or have put on weight.

Another drawback of Heat is that you can tell when it's a bad newsweek, because the magazine feels a bit padded out, ie you get four ages of photographs of someone shopping, but overall it's fab.

Summary: An enjoyable read, thats very "tongue in cheek"