The editorial staff of Sciences & Vie is reborn from its ashes.
Last March, almost all journalists slammed the door to denounce the deteriorated working conditions since the takeover of the century-old scientific magazine by the Reworld Media group.
They accused the management of the first magazine press group of favoring a vision of "short-term click", to the detriment of the editorial quality of the title.
Two months later, Emmanuel Mounier, president and founder of Unique Heritage Media (UHM) (owner of
Le Journal de Mickey, National Geographic Kids,
or
Comment ça marche)
, was able to transform this exodus into an opportunity for his press group. and independent publishing. On Monday, May 10, he announced the birth of a new monthly scientific news
Epsiloon
(the two
united
“
o
” symbolize infinity), through his entity Fleurus Presse.
The first issue of
Epsiloon
will be available at the end of June, priced at 4.90 euros and 100,000 copies will be on newsstands.
To design this new magazine, UHM hired six journalists from the former
Sciences & Vie
editorial staff
.
The adventure is led by Hervé Poirier, former editor who left last fall after twenty years in the house, and Mathilde Fontez, the former deputy editor who followed him in January.
The group also collaborates with a dozen freelancers, who historically worked with
Sciences & Vie
.
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“
After the resignation of the journalists from Sciences et Vie, we were all saddened to see that this magazine was probably going to lose its quality.
The meeting with the ex-team was obvious, the project was assembled very quickly in the greatest of secrets
”, confides to
Figaro
Emmanuel Mounier.
Epsiloon will offer in-depth and committed scientific articles, with a desire always assumed to "
popularize science in the best sense of the term
" to make the French love the subject.
"Its refreshed model breaks the traditional codes of the scientific press"
, abounds this polytechnician passionate about science.
Crowdfunding platform
In order to financially support the magazine, a pre-subscription campaign has just been launched on the Ulule crowdfunding platform. In the medium term,
Epsiloon
wishes to develop a whole ecosystem of special issues, podcast and video formats. Unique Heritage Media (UHM), which has invested a little over one million euros in the project, is banking on the summer period to attract new readers. During the summer, the scientific press manages to double its average number sales. At the end of 2021,
Epsiloon
hopes to gather at least 20,000 subscribers, in a context where science is at the heart of the news.
This new magazine will complete the science-awareness titles of the group
Everything to Understand Junior
and
How it Works
, which are aimed at audiences aged 8 to 25.
“Our ambition is to reach 10 million euros in turnover within four years across our entire science and discovery range, half of which would be generated by Epsiloon,
” explains Emmanuel Mounier. Today, the Awakening to Science range generates a turnover of more than 3 million euros.
UHM currently publishes around thirty magazines and publishes more than 200 books per year. In 2015, the independent group, of which Emmanuel Mounier is the majority shareholder, bought Fleurus Presse (
Papoum
,
Abricot
,
Les P'tites princesses or
Le Monde des ados
). At the end of 2019, he had acquired the titles of Disney Magazines, the former Disney Hachette Presse (
Le journal de Mickey
,
Picsou Magazine
). In 2020, UHM generated a turnover of 62 million euros, with a profitability of more than 8% of Ebitda.