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Clive Labovitch (1932-1994) was an entrepreneuial British publisher notable for his involvement in Cherwell, Cornmarket Press and its successor Haymarket Publishing (in 2007 the largest privately-owned publishing company in the UK) and Publishing News, UK publishing's trade journal. Labovitch's early death from complications following heart bypass surgery was a shock and disappointment to his friends in the industry, who as they reach their own retirement are increasingly paying tribute to his character and vision (see below).
[edit] Cherwell
Clive Labovitch was editor of the Oxford University student newspaper Cherwell in 1951, was regarded by some as 'the enterprising Oxonian who turned the sleepy Cherwell into a lively undergraduate tabloid'[1].
[edit] Cornmarket Press
Labovitch remained involved with Cherwell after graduation and became a friend of Michael Heseltine who as President of the Oxford Union in 1954 'rented him a shed in the grounds of the union'[2] (in Frewin Court, off Cornmarket) where Labovitch started his publishing business. In 1957 he acquired a publication called Oxford University What's What, containing a 40-page section of 'Opportunitities for Graduates' which Heseltine suggested should be expanded and distributed nationally to all University students in their final year. Labovitch and Heseltine became partners and the first Directory of Opportunities for Graduates was published in 1957. Simon Tindall (later to become managing director of Haymarket) joined them in 1959 and recalls Labovitch as "gentle and academic, a nice man".[2]
Cornmarket purchased its first magazine Man About Town from the publishers of Tailor and Cutter in either 1959[3] or 1960[4] and "Clive [Labovitch] recruited a team that was to turn this tatty quarterly into a glossy monthly for men"[5], which their subsidiary Fame Magazine Ltd relaunched as about town in Spring 1960. It was renamed again in July 1962, becoming simply Town[6].
During this period Philip Kogan (founder of Kogan Page Ltd) joined Cornmarket as Publishing Director. He describes Labovitch as "a remarkable entrepreneur" amd "a man who was fecund — probably too fecund — of publishing ideas, but short of notions on management and financial control"[7].
"I knew for a fact that this magazine was going to fold. And I thought to myself, 'I cannot destroy this young man's career by letting him be associated with this one-way ticket to disaster… so I turned him down'." 24 October 2003 Dog watches Dog - Why Hezza gave Tel the brush-off Press Gazette http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=28426§ioncode=1
http://www.publishingnews.co.uk/pnarchive/display.asp?K=e2007053112071400&st_01=labovitch&pl=10&fields=default&sort=date%2Fd&sf_01=KEYWORD&stem=false&sf_03=type&sf_02=date&m=1&dc=2 Forty years on... 25/May/2007 Publishing News Archive
“It never made money, but it made our reputation,” Tarzan swings to new heights The Sunday Times October 28, 2007 James Ashton http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article2752051.ece
n 1960 he appointed me editor of Town magazine, which he owned jointly with Clive Labovitch (`a kind, gentle man whom I trusted implicitly'). http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_200009/ai_n8916053 Boy's own story Spectator, The, Sep 16, 2000 by Hughes, David David Hughes LIFE IN THE JUNGLE: MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Michale Heseltine Hoddler, L20, pp. 560
http://www.vinmag.com/online/gbu0-display/town.html
[edit] Haymarket Publishing
Town made little money, it was a high profile title in swinging-sixties Britain and attracted the attention of Geoffrey Crowther, then chairman of printers Hazell Watson & Viney. He proposed a joint company, and bought a 40% stake in Cornmarket, which was renamed Haymarket.
