By Dan Oshodin
Hints magazine, pioneer of the romance genre of
journalism in Nigeria is undergoing very
fundamental changes. The 20 year old publication
which became an instant success in the 90's with
its true life romance stories welcomed its readers
into 2009 with a new all-gloss look branded 'Hints
International'.
According to its publisher, "Hints is converting from
a weekly to a monthly. It's also going gloss and
focusing on relationship issues in and around West
Africa and beyond". But the magazine will not throw
away its romance property. "It would be an outrage
for you to have your darling Hints without the true
life romance stories that made us a household
name" says Omena Daniels, Hints Internationa
Editor.
In its heydays Hints was a weekly must-read for
ladies and students, later spurning out an equally
successful brand extension, Hints Thrills & Booms,
a kind of parody of the famous romance series,
Mills & Boon. In 1999 and 2000, a couple of media
audience ranking reports rated the magazine the
No.1 beating popular news magazines like Tell and
The News.
Towards the end of the last decade, Hints like
many other magazines in Nigeria struggled to be on
the newsstand as regular as expected. During this
period, sales dwindled, advertising support
plummeted and as many as twenty publications in
the romance genre came to the news stands and
vanished before long, some within a few months.
Hints however kept faith with its reader, maintaining
an on-off presence albeit with its poor print.
The magazine market has however taken a turn in
the last five years as readership has improved and
new female oriented publications like True Love and
Genevieve have taken advantage of new tastes, a
development which may have inspired the Hints’
rebranding drive.
Hints International is published by True Tales
Publications Limited, a Lagos based company
founded by Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, Harvard trained lawyer
and former Executive Director at Texaco and Mobil.
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