Consumer ABCs: Women’s Lifestyle

There were some mixed results coming from the Women’s Lifestyle category in the latest consumer ABC magazine findings.

Although a fair number of titles recorded moderate levels of growth, or showed they were on an even keel, a large proportion also witnessed some disappointing declines in circulation between July and December 2016.

Following a relaunch last year, Cosmopolitan managed to buck the trend in the first half of 2016, reporting a stand-out yearly increase to its print and digital circulation. Although it could not maintain that upward trajectory in the second half of the year, the title was only down by -1.34% while remaining steady year-on-year.

The Hearst-owned title, which now operates a “pop-up and pick-up” distribution scheme, has a circulation of 408,000, suggesting there’s plenty of life in a magazine that is willing to experiment.

Meanwhile, John Lewis Edition remains the best performing title – largely because it is free. However, the magazine was down by more than -20% on the same period in 2015. The title has a (purely print) circulation of 457,500.

Only just behind with a circulation of almost 455,000 is Hearst’s Good Housekeeping – looking healthy with period-on-period growth of 2.2% and year-on-year growth of 11%.

Elsewhere, Conde Nast’s Glamour continued to perform badly, down -13.2% PoP and down almost -26% YoY. The title has a combined print and digital presence of 260,400 – still largely in print.

It was also a bad period for HELLO!, down -10.8% PoP and -15.5% YoY. The publication has a total circulation of 226,000. The title’s sister publication, HELLO! Fashion Monthly also took a kicking and was down -19.4% year-on-year.

Vogue, which is currently on the hunt for a new UK editor following Alexandra Shulman’s decsion to leave later this year, remained pretty steady. With a circulation of 195,000, the fashion brand was up just 0.02% PoP and 0.04% YoY.