Breaking News! (Heat)

Member Name: lora44

Product:	Heat
Date:	11/06/05 (2834 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Value for money, TV guide

Disadvantages: Sometimes borders on the ridiculous

Heat is probably not a magazine I would have ever picked off a shelf and made the decision to buy. Unfortunately I got sucked into doing just that, and have done every Tuesday for heaven knows how many weeks, ever since getting a free copy with a newspaper I bought at WHSmith. Well I think that was the offer, like I said I've been reading this magazine for so long now...the issue I have infront of me is 23-29 April 2005 (so obviously not the most recent) and that is Issue number 318.

So I know what you're thinking, it's just ANOTHER celebrity magazine. Fair point. With no less than six "celebrities" (it does rather depend on your definition of the word) adorning the front of the aforementioned issue I have in front of me (23-29 April 2005) it can't really claim to be anything else.

** 'This week's hottest celebrity news' **
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This sits in medium-sized black front above the large red title "heat" and below it we can find the price and the date of the magazine. This is constant week in week out, as you'd expect, and the cover obviously changes from week to week. There's often lots of red and yellow used, so the magazine stands out quite a way on the shelf, and there are - as I've said - lots of pictures on the front each week.

"Britney's Baby News!"
"Michelle McManus loses 5½ stone!"
"Which do men prefer? Skinny or Curvy? Heat Poll: We ask 100 blokes (many of them famous)"
"Brad & Angelina spend 2 days in hotel suite"

These are just some of the exciting goings on in the lives of famous people you can expect to read about - their weight, their fashion choices, their lifestyle choices, what they think is better - skinny or curvy, blonde or brunette, daddy or chips....Heat magazine always boasts of having the first pictures, an exclusive or a shock report.

**Contents**
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As you open the magazine you'll find an advert on the left hand side (so the inside of the cover) and the contents on the right hand page. This is a great thing about this magazine - it's not the thickness of a telephone directory with half of that being adverts. It works out to be between 120 and 130 pages each week, though you do get bumper issues from time to time. You won't find terribly long feature articles that you'll find in the telephone-directory size magazines like Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan either. There's a large picture to text ratio.

Ok, so back to contents. The first page is 'Everyone's talking about...' and briefly outlines a story that's made the headlines that week. In the issue in front of me, everyone is talking about 'Britney's pregnancy'. The contents then runs down the right hand side.

**Letters**
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Readers get to voice their opinions about the latest scandal in Tinsel Town or the latest offering to reality TV. Letter of the week wins a prize, lately it's an LG C3300 phone from T-Mobile with £10 free credit.

**Fast Gossip/ LA Confidential**
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Quick gossip basically - on both sides of the pond.

**Love & Stuff**
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"What they're up to & with who!" basically sums up what this section is about, with the 'On' and 'Off' section so you can see at a glance who is with who.

**The Week in Pictures**
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The titles of these features are pretty much self explanatory, this normally spans about 20 pages. Each day spans a couple of pages and has pictures of a certain 'celebrity' or a celebrity couple doing something 'interesting' - again I use the speech marks because it really does depend on your own definitions - for example Coleen McLoughlin becoming a fashion model, or Darius wearing a kilt, Keira Knightley learning to sword fight, Javine rearranging her pants in public, Sharon Stone with 12 pieces of luggage at Heathrow Airport and James Bourne (formerly of Busted) getting into a fight with a photographer...oh what a week that was!

**Circle of shame**
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I've seen this kind of feature in several magazines - it's a nice reminder that celebrities are infact human and do sweat or spill things down themselves etc etc. The eagle-eyed people at Heat Towers don't miss a thing.

**Star Style**
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Since under going a bit of make over itself, the magazine now focuses much more on fashion than it used to. If fashion is what interests you I wouldn't buy Heat specifically for this section, but it's an interesting change:

• Best Dressed - high praise for those celebrities who've got it right in the fashion stakes this week

• This Week on the High Street - They take a high street shop and there are pictures of must-have items from there, and also celebrities who shop there. In this issue Warehouse is the 'must-visit' high street store.

• You Look Amazing - A make-up section with a celebrities setting a good example, and advice from a make-up artist on how to copy the look, including info on the products you'll need, and a few tips on application.

• What Were You Thinking? - Celebrities in some truly shocking outfits!

• Everyone's wearing... - In this issue it's 'chunky beads' - it tells you who 'everyone' is (Teri Hatcher, Carmen Electra, Nicole Richie) and tells you where to get them from.

• Find it! - This is a great section in my opinion, readers write in having seen a celebrity wearing something and they'll tell you where you can buy it from.
-- If you're interested the e-mail address for this feature is findit@emap.com --

• Steal her Style! - Similar to the 'You Look Amazing' feature, only this time they take a celebrity and tell you how to copy their whole outfit, but on a high street level, so the items are just slightly more affordable. In this issue they manage to copy a Brittany Murphy outfit for £216. At the bottom of this page there is stockist information.

**Spotted**
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For all you celebrity stalkers out there, this is an entire double page dedicated to descriptions of where celebrities have been cited. There are some pictures, and at the bottom there are pictures taken by readers - you can currently win £200 for these photos.

**Heat Torso of the Week**
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Now this feature is fairly new to the magazine, but it has already stirred quite a bit of controversy. In the issue before the General Election, the Torso of the Week was none other than...Tony Blair! And it provoked quite a mixed response. Well I'll let you make your own mind up, but just think...it could have been Michael Howard *shudders* hehe! This week it's Matthew McConaughey, in past issues I've seen the likes of Usher, Justin Timberlake and Will Young - much more pleasing on the eye than Tony Blair, but each to their own I guess!

**Surgery Spy**
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Have they or haven't they? They have a comparison of two photos of a celebrity and then three panelists - a registered plastic surgeon, a professional make-up artist and a dermatology specialist give their verdict. Also on this page you'll find the horoscopes.

**Horoscopes**
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I always find this an interesting feature in a magazine, it's much more concise than it used to be, at the bottom is a weekly love-planner which rates how much love you're going to have on any given day for the next week.

**Heat Interview**
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Whoever does the interview gets to dress up - there have been some quite funny ones, though word of warning - this weeks issue (21-27 May) has an interview with Gordon Ramsey and the picture is NOT pretty! You've been warned....lol!
I enjoy reading the interview, sometimes they can be quite funny - they ask the questions the celebrities really don't want to answer, and sometimes you can see the reaction they get is very amusing. They also transcribe a lot of the interviewee's gestures and so on and put their own thoughts on the celebrity at the beginning.

**Reviews**
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They review films, DVD releases, books and CDs
- One long film review and two shorter and 'Your top ten films'
- Two album reviews and five short single reviews
- Two DVD reviews and 'Your top ten DVDs'
- Two book reviews and 'Your top ten books'

They also include upcoming releases. The reviews are fairly good, but obviously nothing in comparison to the likes of DooYoo and Ciao ;)
They have star ratings and fairly detailed opinion plus information like date of release, price for some products, certificate rating for films/DVDs.

There's also small boxes on these pages called 'Star selection' in which stars like Alex Carter (Lee from Hollyoaks) and Claudia Winkleman tell you the last film they saw, the last CD they bought, the last DVD they bought and the last book they read.

**Heat TV**
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This section is a TV guide and then some. They include interviews with the stars of new shows, and information on the concept behind new shows, quotes from old shows that are ending or are just good (they've done this for the likes of Little Britain, Friends, Sex and the City and The Osbornes). In the issue currently before me there is a low-down of the celebrities taking part in Celebrity Wrestling and an interview with a Michael Jackson lookalike.

Fast Gossip TV gives exclusive gossip about new projects that stars have lined up, things that have happened on American TV and so on, like Justin Timberlakes guest appearance on 'Saturday Night Live' in the US with his girlfriend Cameron Diaz.
There's also TV Top 10, which gives the viewing figures for the top ten programmes that week, and My Favourite Telly - where stars talk about their favourite programmes, their TV pin-up, their favourite TV snacks, and what makes them turn off.

The TV guide itself is pretty well laid out, covering BBC1-Five in a tabular kind of format as you'd expect from most TV guides, with the time slots so you can compare what's on at the same sort of time. Then they have Pick of the Day where one programme is explained in a lot of detail, and three others in slightly less detail. There's a slight giving away of the plot in some cases, though mostly they're just quite humorous. I particularly enjoyed how sarcastic they were about Katy from Coronation Street's awful hair! Hehe. Haha and reading through what they wrote for Coronation Street on the 24 April you can see what I mean: I'm ruining nothing because this episode has since passed.

'When Karon McDonald left t'Street, we swore we would never, ever support her ex-husband getting together with her arch nemesis, the evil Tracy Barlow. But time passes, feelings fade, and top o' the morning, she's better than that Louise, isn't she? (Notice how we didn't mention Louise's hair the whole time she was in Corrie even thought it was blatantly awful?' That's because we don't want you to think we're obsessed with barnets, and also because we feel a tad guilty about driving Katy to suicide. She might have said it was because she killed her dad, but we know the truth.)'

They include highlights of what's on on digital on this page, but the digital TV does have it's own section. I don't use this very much as I find it a bit confusing - in fact I don't use this TV guide very much just because I love Radio Times too much - Heat obviously doesn't take account of regional differences, which isn't too much of a big deal. I certainly wouldn't buy this magazine for the TV guide alone, but it's a handy extra I guess.

There are also radio highlights. The handiest part of the TV guide has to be right at the end though - 'The Week's best TV shows' - a top ten for both terrestrial and digital, which, proving you agree with it can prove a handy reminder of what's on when, to ensure you don't miss anything!

**Crossword**
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This is really a test of your showbiz knowledge more than anything else, but you can win some pretty nifty prizes - it changes week in week out - in this issue a personal DVD player is up for grabs. The answers for the previous week's crossword are given too.

22 ACROSS
Oh. My. God. Maggie Wheeler's Friends character (6)

18 DOWN
Peter Andre's classic made-up word and single (7)


**Say What?**
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This is a compilation of things celebrities have said, with often sarcastic retorts from the Heat writers:

'Shoes are cute, but food is really important'
- Well said, Alicia Silverstone

'I do all right when it comes to line dancing, but as soon as I move my hips, it's kind of an issue'
- The fact that you do line dancing is the real issue here, Ashton Kutcher

**My Overall Opinion**
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Phew, they manage to pack quite a lot into those 130 pages in my opinion. I do think that it can be a bit over the top sometimes, I don't really care to see pictures of Peter Stringfellow in a thong sunning himself on holiday it has to be said, and I do find the double page spread on J-Lo picking her nose a tad ridiculous but still it is nice to know that these celebrities are human and now that's it veered slightly away from the celebrity gossip and there are also sections on fashion and they've improved the TV section I think the magazine is a great weekly read.

The writers who work at Heat Towers have established a really good writing style that is pretty much unique. As a magazine, they claim to love celebrities - after all without them their magazine would be pretty empty, but they say that they don't put them on a pedestal.

"Sure we love their films, TV shows and CDs but we love them even more when they wear awful dresses to the Oscars or fall over drunk outside the Met Bar."

This is very much reflected in their writing style - they do like to take the piss, it has to be said - I think the extract from the Coronation Street highlights this quite well.

I ought to just mention that since Big Brother is starting next week, Dermot O'Leary will be writing his weekly column once more - hooray! This is his views on the housemates, the goings on in the house and so on.

The magazine comes out every Tuesday and can be bought from most newsagents and supermarkets. You might even be able to read a copy in your local dentist/doctor's waiting room :P

It costs £1.50 (Euros - 3.25 excl. ROI) and if you want to get in touch you'll require the following information:

heat 7th floor,
Endeavour House,
189 Shaftesbury Avenue,
London,
WC2H 8JG
Tel: (020) 7437 9011
Fax: (020) 7859 8670
E-mail: heat@emap.com

To subscribe visit www.greatmagazines.co.uk
For 51 weekly issues (inc p&p)
UK: £76.50
Airmail Europe, Eire & USA: £125
Airmail rest of world: £250

The website says it'll cost you £18.95 every 3 months for free delivery to your door and the free gift is currently a Rimmel set worth £20.

Quick word of warning - nothing major, but this magazine doesn't always tend to censor out some of those four-word expletives that naughty celebrities use so that might be worth bearing in mind.

Thanks for reading!

lora44

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