Magazine Growth Still Strong

The consumer magazine market is still growing strongly but at a slower rate, according to Wessenden Marketing’s Spring 1995 Circulation Review; an analysis of the Jul-Dec’94 ABCs. The market was worth just under £1.4bn in 1994 at retail prices. This a 6.1% year on year increase compared to a 10.4% rise in 1993. This slow down in growth resulted from a more modest rise in volumes than previous years (+0.3% in 1994 in comparison to +1.9% in 1993). Cover prices rose by 4.4% in 1994 in comparison to +7.3% in 1993.

Jim Bilton, the Managing Director of Wessenden Marketing, commenting on the figures said, “The figures are actually a little more positive than they appear. The underlying performance of constantly published titles is better than in any year since the mid 1980’s yet two things have slowed market growth; the first is the balance between births and deaths: The ABC figures show the demise of some large titles such as ME while the speed up in launch activity after the recession had not yet filtered through into the ABC figures.” “The second is a much more cautious approach to cover pricing which has slowed down markedly even though inflation has speeded up.”

Subscriptions (+8.3% In volume) continue to rise faster than retail sales (+0.2%). They now account for 4.8% of the total volume of copies sold, up from 4.6% a year ago.

Export markets (+12.1% In volume) have grown faster than domestic sales (0.3%). They now account for 5.1% of the total volume of copies sold, up from 4.6% a year ago.

All the top 5 publishers have increased market share, though the rate of their increase has slowed down, particularly EMAP’s which has stopped closing the gap on IPC.

Publishers With Over 1% Of The ABC Defined Market

(percent share of total value)