The latest ABC results demonstrate that people are still investing in magazines. Although some titles have suffered decreases many titles remain stable, which is reassuring against a backdrop of weak economic growth and high unemployment.  Whilst the monthly upmarket titles remain healthy it’s the weekly mass market real life titles that are suffering and this can be attributed to increased cost of living and less disposable income, as well as the sheer number of titles that make up this market.  There is still a big battle in the overcrowded celebrity market.  Titles with strong brand identities and multiple touchpoints like Closer and Heat are coming out on top, whereas those struggling with a distinct personality like Now and Reveal have tended to suffer more.  With the exception of FHM the men’s market appears to have stopped haemorrhaging readers and the majority of business and news titles have posted increases proving people still want news in the printed format.

Despite the uncertainty over the BBC’s future during the last ABC period, the newly formed Immediate Media, performed well in the latest ABC’s with overall circulation figures up a nominal 0.2%.  Their biggest growth came from some of their kids titles, Toybox and Cbeebies Art.  The top performing publishers were Egmont magazines and DC Thompson, both specialists in the kids market, up 5.3% and 3.2% respectively.  Bauer saw the biggest decrease in sales, with their overall circulations down 9.2% YoY which was driven by specialist titles such as Practical Photography and Pregnancy & Birth falling.  Other publishers also saw overall minimal YoY declines - Haymarket 6.7%, Hearst 6.2%, IPC 4.7% and Conde Nast 3.7% although there were some strong success stories within these figures – Hearst’s Prima up 4.9% and Haymarket’s  FourFourTwo up 6.8%.

These figures do not take into account publisher’s recent and continued investment into the digital arena, and the subsequent growth in their brands overall reach.  Magazines have been allowed to include their digital sales figures in ABC data from January 2011.  Over the latest ABC period, 72 magazines posted ABC figures for their digital editions.  With Apple creating ‘Newsstand’, an area specifically dedicated to digital sales of print publications from last October, we expect that this combined with strong Christmas tablet sales and bespoke tablet editions of magazines, will grow this number further throughout 2012.  Nine of the top ten digital magazine editions were men’s magazines showing that the digital format is bringing this audience back into the magazine market which is great news for advertisers.

Digital editions and evolving brand extensions aside we are pleased with these results as they demonstrate that press remains a key player in this digital world. 
 

Women’s Celebrity Weeklies  

Mark Jones                    

Although the start of 2011 saw the largest event of the year in the form of the Royal Wedding, it was largely a time free of celebrity content so the return of Celebrity Big Brother and X-Factor in the latter part of the year was expected to be a boon to this sector. This proved to be the case for many titles, whose period-on-period figures proved better than their year-on-year ones. Closer typified this, with a 1% PoP increase compared to a 6.4% YoY decline proving that the past 6 months have seen a much stronger performance than the prior period. New! followed a similar pattern and after posting just a 1.6% PoP decline is still the biggest selling title in this sector selling in excess of half a million copies every week.  READ MORE  

Women’s Monthlies

Helen Barber

The Women’s Monthly market has had a relatively stable period, reflecting the resilience of the brands in this sector and the maintenance of reader loyalty through the recessionary period. Marie Claire showed particularly impressive figures, posting an increase of 6.4% PoP and 0.7% YoY. There were more disappointing results for Cosmopolitan and Glamour, but this is perhaps to be expected as the brands continue to expand across other platforms with the popularity of the print product as the anchor of the brand. It will be interesting to see how they continue to evolve through the next year . .  READ MORE 

Men’s Lifestyle

Charlie Woodall

Having teetered on the brink of what appeared a perilously slippery slope after the last ABC release, the Men’s sector has turned around its fortunes with encouraging growth of 1.9% period on period. This resurgence has been led by Four Four Two who posted a whopping 22% increase in their actively purchased circulations. GQ, Wired, Men’s Health and Shortlist all posted increases period on period. Lads’ mags Nuts and Zoo also halted their dramatic drops from the last round during a stable six months, whilst weekly frees Shortlist and Sport with their controlled distribution networks continue to dominate in terms of raw numbers. The sector is notably leading the way in digital sales, with 7 of the top 10 most downloaded paid for digital editions coming from this market. READ MORE 

Traditional Weeklies

Katie Rye

The Real Life and Classic Women’s weeklies sector has shown some stabilisation with this latest set of ABC Circulation figures and impressively three titles have shown PoP increases – Full House (+2.2%), That’s Life (+1.6%) and Woman’s Weekly (+0.7%).

During this period there have been much lower levels of price promotion and multi-packing with the exception of Hearst titles – Best & Real People (19 of 26 issues being multi-bagged) which may go some way towards explaining some of the poorer performances – Pick Me Up -15.3% YoY and Woman’s Own -17.6% YoY.
H Bauer’s Take a Break once again took the number one spot circulating to a significant 791,001 consumers with a stable -1.6% PoP performance and this is without any above the line marketing spend or promotion. READ MORE 

Motoring

Craig Constantinou

The motoring magazines sector has always been reflective of the UK new car sales market and this year is no different. New car sales were down 3.4% from 2010 and motoring press is in line with this by posting an overall circulation decrease of just 5.2% across the market.
Dennis’ Octane magazine was the big winner this period with an increase in circulation of 4.1% PoP. Bauer’s motoring titles also did well posting a 1.9% and 1.7% increase PoP for Car and Classic cars respectively. Evo, BBC Top Gear and What Car showed the biggest decreases of the period, perhaps reflecting what was a stagnant new car market in 2011.
Publishers will be looking forward to 2012 with hopes that the few big launches will propel the market in terms of new car sales and magazine circulations.  READ MORE 

Parenting

Jenna Waller

Overall the parenting market has seen a decline of -10.3% PoP in the latest ABC results. However, encouragingly, the market saw a 2.1% YoY increase, this is accounted for by launch of Gurgle which entered the market in 2010 and has quickly become the 2nd biggest title in the category. The continuing expansion of the parenting digital press sites are thought to be contributing to the decrease. All publishers are reacting to the emergence of press from magazines to cross a platform brand which is shown through the strength in digital and event numbers and level of investment into these areas.  READ MORE 

Home Interest and Gardening

Lauren Macintosh

The home interest and gardening sector has experienced a slight decline in this period, not surprising considering the economic decline and stagnant housing market. Overall this sector was down -3.7%, however two titles which outperformed the rest were Good Homes which saw a 26% increase YoY and Grand Designs up 10% PoP.  These title successes can be attributed to focused subscription drives and successful cover price strategies from their independent specialist publishers.  IPC who were once the dominant player in this sector have had a varying result this period across their titles. Conde Nast’s titles have remained static, but have had success with their iPad offerings. Leading this iPad sector is Elle Deco with recent digitals editions hitting 1,053. With their circulation up 2.7% YoY, it seems Hearst have got the online and print offering combination spot on . READ MORE 

Food

Victoria Graham

As is usual in the food market, the sector has seen a PoP increase in the second half of the year versus the first. This can be attributed to the greater demand for food content over the Christmas period, in particular the Christmas issues. The Jul-Dec ‘11 period posted a positive headline increase of 2% PoP, however, an overall YoY decline of 7% showing that the market is in slight decline. READ MORE 

TV Listings

 Aideen O'Sullivan

With an overall circulation of 4.5m, the TV listings market remain one of the largest circulating sectors.  Only small YoY and PoP decreases were posted which is perhaps surprising because of the instant and accessible information online.  The majority of the TV titles are wholly actively purchased, showing that not only are consumers seeking content through print, they are also willing to pay for it despite the fact they can get information online for free. With the ever evolving sophistication and wealth of information that digital TV sets can now provide (ie programme schedules and individual programme information), it is hugely positive that the demand for the print experience remains high. READ MORE 

Film & Music

 
Lydia Mulkeen

The film and music has seen an overall decline of 7.4% YoY, but significantly less PoP with a decline of just 2%. For a sector so affected by immediacy, i.e. latest releases, downloads etc, the move to online was inevitable. However the PoP decline does shine a positive light, showing that the decline is starting to plateau. Whilst the Film titles did see decreases, their circulations have remained strong thanks to robust download figures of their iPad apps, with Empire averaging 6,000 downloads every issue, showing that the loyalty to the brands and interest in the content remain strong.  .

READ MORE 

Youth (Pre-School )

Mitchell Droppa

As an overall sector combining all the different age groups this market is in a relatively stable position. The standout category is the pre-school market up 10% YoY, partly owing to two new launches, Immediate Publishing’s - Octonauts and Something Special. It isn’t all good news across the board with Pre-teen boys declining 6.5% YoY and girls -0.2% YoY. Titles that utilise the influence of topical Film and TV related content remain pivotal in sweeping this market along, whilst the older teen generation look to utilise magazine brand platforms via social networking and events and are heavily influenced in their purchase decision based on the value of the covermount.
 READ MORE 

Business & News Titles

Sandy Bruce

It’s been another successful period for Business & News magazines as the latest ABC figures show that the core titles have increased their actively purchased circulation by 3.6% PoP and 3.5% YoY respectively.  This can be attributed to a wealth of high profile news stories, such as the UK phone hacking scandal and the Arab Spring uprising among others, which have dominated headlines for over a year now.  Private Eye saw the most impressive increase in the sector of 11.1% PoP, which aided the market as a whole; and with other titles remaining stable in a challenging and dynamic industry, it’s clear that there is still a strong public desire to consume important news in print form. READ MORE