Jackie (magazine)

Jackie was a weekly British magazine for girls. The magazine was published by D.
C. Thomson & Co. Ltd of Dundee from 11 January 1964 until its closure on 3 July
1993 - a total of 1534 issues.

The name was chosen from a list of girls' names, although it was nearly dropped due
to the association with Jackie Kennedy following her husband's assassination in
1963. An urban legend exists that it was named after Jacqueline Wilson who worked
there at the time, before she became a notable children's author. Although the
author has attempted to perpetuate this claim, this has been denied by those who
were involved in the launch.

Jackie was the best-selling teen magazine in Britain for ten years, with sales rising
from an initial 350,000 to 605,947 in 1976. The best ever selling issue was the 1972
special edition to coincide with the UK tour of American singer David Cassidy. During
the 1970s, "Jackie" published a mix of fashion and beauty tips, gossip, short stories
and comic strips. The latter were usually illustrated with line drawings or posed
photographs, especially if the story involved a "reader's true life experience". Both
the comics and the short stories invariably dealt with either romance or family issues.
The centre pages of the magazine usually contained a pull-out poster of a popular
band or film star.

Jackie became very popular with young teenage girls, not least because of the
"Cathy and Claire" problem page, which received 400 reader letters a week and
dealt with controversial issues that were nonetheless relevant to the readership.
However, the subjects covered in the column were not reflective of the majority of
readers' letters, which focused on sex-related issues - DC Thompson as a result kept
the editorial brief, but created a series of help leaflets which they sent to letter
writers. In 1974 the NHS made the contraceptive pill free on prescription, and so
under editor Myskow the magazine introduced a "Dear Doctor" column, which
covered what were termed as "below the waist issues".

Sales declined after the 1970s, and by 1993 circulation had dropped to 50,000
weekly. Deciding not to follow the more sexuality and high-fashion orientation of
newer teenage magazines, DC Thomson chose to shut the magazine down. It was
one of several Thomson papers to close that year. More recently, the company has
started issuing every year an historic Jackie annual. BBC Radio invited Jackie Clune
to do an epitaph for Jackie Magazine, and in 2007 the BBC produced an hour long
programme devoted to the magazine's 70s heyday, called Jackie Magazine: A Girl's
Best Friend, with contributions from former readers, writers, staff and publishers.