Magazine Round Up – Women’s Weeklies

In 1994 the annual advertising expenditure in Women’s Weekly magazines stood at £112m, representing 3.8% of total press expenditure and 14.3% of magazines expenditure. So far this year expenditure is slightly down, with a 6 month average of 3.3%.

There have been only two new additions to women’s weekly market in the last year – both fronting the same shock/tragic/amazing human interest stories – Eva (IPC) launched 8/9/94 and That’s Life (Bauer) launched 12/6/95. In terms of both the number of titles they publish and their circulation totals IPC and Bauer are by far the biggest players in this market segment:

* Includes 600,000 PS for That’s Life @ Includes Peoples Friend Annual ABC only 479,582 J-D 94 and The Lady ABC Jul-Dec94 54,638

Whilst the 2 established Bauer titles have by far the largest circulation it would appear from their latest figures that their popularity is dwindling somewhat – with Bella dropping nearly 90,000 copies – down 9.1% on the same period last year. The best year on year performances come from Chat (IPC) up over 18% and Best (G&J) up over 7.5%:

Chat, as you would expect, gets the best readership result up 15.18% on last year to 1.669m, although its readers per copy figure is amongst the lowest in the sector, perhaps as a result of its crossword/competition format which would make its pass-on value somewhat less than ‘lifestyle’ titles.

The core readership for the majority of women’s weeklies are C1/C2s, although most notable exceptions at the top end are ‘Hello!’ and ‘The Lady’ both with a B/C1 bias, and at the bottom end Eva and Chat which spreads its readership through to Ds and Peoples Friend which is evenly spread C1-E.

There is a fairly even split between titles with an under 45 readership bias and those with an over 45 bias:

* Greatest % of readership 25-35
@ Greatest % of readership 65+
The appearance, as well as the content of the majority of the titles in this segment vary only slightly – if at all.

With the exception of Peoples Friend and The Lady which have covers resembling a chocolate box, and Hello, which is larger in size than the other titles and always has a celebrity, usually Royal, on the front cover, all other titles are A4 with front covers crammed with eye catching human interest stories and competition information. All titles are saddle bound with relatively heavy semi gloss covers, with the exception of That’s Life, Eva, Take A Break and Peoples Friend which use slighter more flimsy paper.

Contents also vary only slightly with all titles, apart from the above exceptions, covering real-life human drama stories. Other popular topics include; recipes, fashion, health and celebrity gossip. Chat, That’s Life and Woman’s Own also have cash/prize competitions; Peoples Friend includes a number of fiction tales and Hello! has views of celebrities ‘at home’ and a TV listings section

Most advertisements in the magazines are single colour pages with the exception of Hello! (Estee Lauder) and Best (Weetabix) which have a DPS. The type of advertisers attracted to this sector seem fairly standard across all titles; with Hello attracting more upmarket advertisers including Clinique and Ponds Institute, and The Lady carrying more classified ads.

The main advertisers across the rest of the sector include: Anchor Spreadable Butter, Ambrosia Fruity Cream Desserts, numerous catalogue companies e.g. Grattons and Look Again, Boots and ‘collectables’ advertisers e.g. Compton & Woodhouse and Ashton Drake Galleries.

All figures are based on copies of the magazines published w/c 14/8/95