Milan Presse has decided to part ways with nature magazines, including Pyrénées Magazine, published in Toulouse. The group wishes to refocus on its core activity, the youth press. The title could be bought by Agora Pyrénées. This collective of Pyrenean actors is studying the conditions for resuming the bimonthly.
Pyrénées Magazine, the pioneer of titles dedicated to the discovery of the Pyrenean massif, should change hands. Milan press has decided to part with it. A collective of Pyrenean actors is studying the conditions for its resumption.
The Bayard group, which bought Milan Presse in 2004, decided at the start of the year to stop the titles of its “Nature and Territories” division, to devote itself to the major editorial sectors of news and the youth press. This decision “emanates from the strategic plan established by the group in 2023, leading it to redefine its investment priorities for the future” the press group specified in a press release at the start of 2024.
Milan Presse will refocus on children’s publications, which represent 60% of its activity.
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© ERIC CABANIS / AFP
A 100% subsidiary of Bayard Presse, the Toulouse publisher Milan Presse is therefore separating from Pyrénées Magazine. “Discussions are underway with potential buyers. The group’s priority is to sell these activities to players who will be able to bring new dynamics to the titles and preserve jobs as best as possible”indicates Mayor Bayard Presse.
Pyrénées magazine was created in 1989. The bimonthly was the first local magazine created in France. The winning bet of Patrice Amen, passionate about these mountains at the gates of Toulouse, which has chosen to embark on the adventure, with a magazine which is not only touristy and which gives a large place to field reports and photography.
Its creator wanted to address visitors and hikers, but also the inhabitants of the massif, by revealing to them the riches that are theirs. It was the birth of the concept of territorial press, which aims to convey a valued image of a territory and to highlight its culture, its history, and natural and human heritage.
Success was not long in coming. In 20 years, Pyrénées Magazine has become essential. But the 2008 crisis and the increase in production costs plunged it into the red, like its little brother Terre Sauvage or Alpes Magazine. A group of Pyrenean actors refuse to see it disappear.
Because, in addition to publishing a dozen magazines per year, Pyrénées magazine co-organizes the Pyrenean Nature Image Festival which takes place every last weekend of September in Cauterets and the Eldorando festival in Arrens-Marsous. Pyrénées Magazine also participated in the creation of a Mark for the Pyreneeslaunched in February 2018which aims to enhance, promote and develop the Pyrenees and the economy of the massif.
A collective of Pyrenean actors, grouped in Tarbes, within the Agora Pyrénées association, therefore decided to save the title: “The spirit of this takeover is to make Pyrénées Magazine the media of the Pyrenees, by creating a cooperative society of collective interest (SCIC)”. Discussions are ongoing.
The SCIC would bring together associations, businesses, public actors and local authorities, citizens and readers of Pyrénées Magazine. Of the citizens, who consider that “the bimonthly is part of the Pyrenean heritage, it is at the same time a media, “The media” of the Pyrenees, a mirror, a witness, a facilitator, a centerpiece”.
