Last week at The PPA Awards, the History Extra podcast from BBC History Magazine received the inaugural Podcast of the Year award. With up to 3 million listens a month and a roster of episodes dating all the way back to 2007, the podcast remains one of the most popular general interest history podcasts out there. Editor of the magazine and podcast, Rob Attar, explains exactly what value the podcast brings to the BBC History Magazine brand and how they keep it relevant and fresh.

For a second year in a row, the public voted for Cosmopolitan to win the PPA Front Cover of the Year award. Forever pushing boundaries and providing a platform for a diverse range of communities, the winning Cosmopolitan cover featuring the TV star, Jonathan Van Ness demonstrated exactly this. We spoke with Editor-in-Chief Claire Hodgson about what it meant to win last night and the evolution of the magazine since she took up her role last April.

As Reviews Editor at What Car?, Will Nightingale covers new car launches, writes and films comparison tests, always making sure there's real science behind all the information they provide. In recent months however, the science has gone further than how many miles to the gallon a car can do, as Will has spearheaded a project introducing new COVID car testing guidelines. While this may lengthen the process of car testing, it has ensured the What Car? team can continue to produce trusted content for their readers.

From the very start of her career, Lisa Smosarski learnt that to be a successful Editor is to "live or die by how well we know our audience." Having taken on the editorship of a number of iconic magazines, namely Smash Hits when she was 25, she is now the Editor-in-Chief of the incredibly popular Stylist magazine, which caters to 'Women Who Want More From Their World.' In this interview, Smosarski reflects on these last few months, the digital innovation that has taken place within The Stylist Group with the introduction of the app and when they hope the beloved print magazine will be returning.

A publisher which caters to the gardening, baking, crafting & TV needs of a locked down population will inevitably reap the rewards of providing high-quality content week after week, month after month. The subscription success story of Immediate Media, told to us by Subscriptions Director Helen Ward, reminds us of the valuable role magazines have and will continue to play in peoples lives.

As an events business as well as a B2B media publisher, Incisive Media has had to rapidly adapt its events portfolio. Simone Broadhurst, Managing Director of Events at Incisive explains the platforms best suited to the company, the innovation that has taken place over the last few months and the inevitability of hybrid events in the future.

Locked down at home with nothing to punctuate our days other than breakfast, lunch and dinner it's no surprise that olive magazine subscriptions are up 277% this month and digital traffic is up 200%, increasing steadily every week. Editor Laura Rowe, picks out the processes they'll be carrying forward, the importance the magazine plays in championing the food industry at this time and their reactive content which shifts daily as our quarantine eating habits change.

From a science lab in America to a digital publishing platform in London, Kimberly Karman's career progression into publishing is not typical. However, after 12 years at New Scientist during which she was part of the digital launch of the magazine in the UK and time as Marketing Director at Pugpig, Karman has found her purpose in supporting the ideals of great journalism. She unpicks the engaging power of an app for publishers versus the internet, the acceleration of digital transitions during this pandemic and digital developments on her Radar.

The Editor of the football magazine FourFourTwo, deems the role of the monthly publication to bring the football community together as more important than ever. Watchalong events of old matches and virtual pub quizzes provide this "escapism" that readers look for and demonstrate new ways of engaging, which James Andrew hopes will continue once we return to normality.

After 40 years in the industry, editing, publishing and launching magazines followed by 10 years of bringing the industry together as CEO of the PPA, Barry McIlheney looks back on the career that began in Belfast and brought him to London where he instantly made his mark as Editor of Smash Hits at 26-years-old. "I didn't really know it at the time, but this was the big break," he says. "Everything I have done since then stems from that." As he steps down from his official role at the PPA, McIlheney reflects on the highlights, his favourite covers and the striking changes in the industry that have taken place over the last 30 years.

Keeping track of the rapidly changing COVID-19 global data set and finding ways to visually present it to readers is all part of the job for Helen Atkinson. As a visual data journalist at The Economist, she works to adapt data, collected and cleaned by a non-visual data journalist, into clear and meaningful charts. Atkinson explains what her job entails day-to-day, the things to consider when presenting data and data in the time of COVID-19.

As our lives change dramatically we look for continuity in the places we trust. For many that is the magazine subscription delivered through their door each week, full of the positive, life-affirming content they are looking for.

As a print publisher and a content and experience business, Hearst must focus on maintaining this relationship with clients as well as readers. Jessica Saller, Head of Business Marketing at Hearst explains how they have adapted their strategy to focus on more regular and valuable communication with clients.

In the last week alone, Bauer Media has seen their subscription performance more than double with an increase of over 160% as people seek out content to help make the most of being at home. "Clearly magazines are well placed to meet these content needs", says Liz Martin Commercial Marketing & Insight Director at Bauer, "and we are seeing this having a significant impact on magazine subscriptions."

In her interview with the PPA, Martin explains what Bauer research projects are planned around, the "Bauer Insiders" that provide this data and what she hopes to focus on when this crisis is over.

Ashwin Saddul is the Founder and Managing Director of Better than Paper, a service that helps to democratise the publishing industry by providing publishers of all sizes with cost-effective software to build digital magazines. From the start "it was all about levelling the playing the field and giving publishers the chance to experiment with their own format," Saddul explains. "The technology is affordable so you can go out and experiment, fail quickly and learn quickly."

The Corporate Responsibility Manager of TI Media, Jane Mortimore, explains exactly what her role entails, the four pillars she focuses on and how she is navigating these uncertain times.

A lesson we learnt last week was that when we all pull together as an industry we can achieve great things. Later this year, we look forward to the axing of a digital reading tax, as Rishi Sunak announced in his March 2020 Budget. ​​​​​​​I spoke with Owen Meredith, PPA MD, who charts the success of our #AxeTheReadingTax campaign and what this now means for publishers in the UK.