ABC Consumer July – December 2014: News and Current Affairs

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.

Domestic

A fairly flat period for News and Current Affairs saw Private Eye, The Week and BBC History Magazine maintain the top three spots, with the Ian Hislop-edited satirical mag leading the way with a solid 220,000 copies sold per issue.

Up 3.1% period on period (PoP) and 3.8% year on year (YoY), Immediate Media’s BBC History Magazine saw sales near 92,800 – though still a long way from The Week’s 200,000.

Prospect was the only title to record a decline in circulation over the period, down -0.8%, while The Week Magazine was up a modest 5.1% to record 27,600.

A marginal 0.8% increase in circulation over the period saw The Spectator Group secure 63,200 copies, while the Spectator excluding Australia averaged a little under 54,800.

Business & Finance

While most titles in the sector recorded little change over the period – be those slight increases in circulations or declines – the Investors Chronicle saw sales soar both period on period and year on year.

The Financial Times-owned title was up 11.4% PoP and 19.8% YoY to 32,000 copies – comfortably ahead of the next best-performing title, The Economist Middle East/Africa edition, however, still a long way behind MoneyWeek, which recorded the largest period (-8.9%) and yearly (-7.2%) declines of all the titles.

As has come to be expected, the European, UK and Asia Pacific editions of The Economist held on to the top three spots with circulations averaging 248,400, 223,900 and 152,300, respectively – comfortably ahead of all other Business and Finance titles.

The only other significant growth belonged to What Franchise, published by Partridge Publications, which was up 13.4% YoY to secure a little over 12,500 copies.