ABC consumer magazine market: overview
The latest ABC release for the July – December 2014 period charts all the trends for the print magazine market. Here is Newsline’s overview – with links to full articles and charts for each sector.
For the second period Newsline is reporting on combined print and digital (gross) figures for all magazine brands, as this is now ABC’s “headline figure”.
Although the separate figures for print and digital are revealed in the charts below, all copy will only reference combined data.
Women’s Weeklies
The second half of 2014 saw mixed fortunes for the women’s weekly magazine market – although it was a better performance than the first half of the year – and also witnessed some movement in the rankings.
Take a Break continues to lead the market despite a -1.7% decline in circulation, period on period (PoP), and a -7.3% drop year on year. The magazine’s combined print and digital sales now average almost 646,000 each week.
Woman’s Weekly has managed to move up the rankings and is now in second place, recording period on period growth of 0.6%. The title now records an average weekly circulation of almost 308,000 for combined print and digital formats.
Chat has also moved up the rankings, from fourth place to third, despite a -1.8% drop, PoP, and a -8.5% drop, YoY. The title recorded a circulation of almost 303,000.
Men’s Lifestyle
Despite seeing circulation drop both period on period (PoP) and year on year (YoY), free title ShortList continued to dominate the Men’s Lifestyle sector with an average gross circulation of a little over half a million for print and digital.
Similarly, Sport, which is also free, was down over the period and the year as well, however, with an average combined print and digital circulation of 301,500, easily secured the second spot ahead of Men’s Health.
While Men’s Health continued to perform well with combined print and digital sales a little over 200,000 per issue, Men’s Fitness saw circulation fall by -5.2% over the period and a slightly more significant -15.8% year on year.
Women’s Lifestyle
There was no change in the ranking for the top three titles in the Women’s Lifestyle sector, which saw John Lewis Edition firmly in the lead – and breaking through the 500,000 circulation barrier.
With a 4.2% increase, period on period (PoP), the free title only really saw competition from second place holder ASOS.com – again, a free title – with a circulation of 486,168. ASOS.com was up 2% PoP and 8.1% year on year (YoY).
Still in third place, paid-for magazine Good Housekeeping from Hearst Magazines recorded PoP growth of 3.1% and now boasts a circulation of almost 420,000.
TV Listings
There was little change to the TV Listings sector in terms of rankings, however, there were some significant period and yearly declines in circulation across the 10 titles.
While print-only TV Choice maintained the top spot with a little under 1.27 million weekly copies sold, it was down -2.8% period on period (PoP) and -7.9% year on year (YoY).
A 2% PoP rise saw the next best-performing title, What’s On TV, close in on TV Choice with a little over a million copies, while Radio Times was up 2.7% PoP to 783,000.
Home Interest
As a yearly reporting title, WI Life magazine, from the Women’s Institute, was back in the top spot for the latest Consumer ABCs for July – December 2014 for the home interest market.
With no year on year change, WI Life recorded a combined print and digital circulation of 212,547. This forced Time Inc’s Ideal Home into second place, with a circulation of 187,509, period on period decline of -4.6% and year on year decline of -2.9%.
Hearst Magazine UK’s Country Living was pushed from second to third place with an average monthly gross circulation of 182,622, and a period on period increase of 2.1%.