NRS Round-Up Jan-Jun 1995

General Interest

The latest round of readership figures, for the period Jan to June 1995, show Sky magazine losing a further 11,000 readers on December to May 1995. This is a decrease of 54% on last year’s Jan to June figures, before Sky’s card was changed to differentiate it from Sky TV Guide. Sky’s latest figure, 1,540,000 is still, however, vastly higher than the nearest other male interest title, GQ, which has a readership of 650,000. GQ recorded an increase of 34% year on year. This was the biggest increase of any general interest title except for Max Power, which was up 45.5%.

Loaded has recorded its highest readership so far, of 464,000 for July to June 1995; this for the first time beats all the other male interest titles except GQ (Arena, Face, Esquire and FHM).

Other general titles to perform well this period were Select, the music title, up 20.2% year on year. Country Life and Horse and Hound both recorded increases of over 10% year on year, and TV & Satellite Week was up 13.85% to 1,167,000. The big increase in readership of the male interest style titles appears to have adversely affected the male erotic titles, with Penthouse losing 34.3% of its readership compared to last year; Fiesta’s figure is also down significantly, by 29.5%. Other titles which fared badly were Popular Classics down 33%, Street Machine, down 31% and Practical Caravan, down 30%.

The BBC titles did not fare well either, with BBC Gardener’s World down 1.6% year on year, and BBC Wildlife down 22.9% year on year. The Radio Times was also down, 7.7%. BBC Music Magazine, which only recorded an annual figure, was down on the previous year’s figure by 19.8%.

Top General Titles

Women’s Interest – Weeklies

Among the women’s weekly titles, Chat fared best, with its readership up 15.2% on last January to June to 1,669,000, an actual increase of 220,000. Peoples Friend recorded the next highest increase, up 6.8%. Take A Break, which has the highest readership figure, recorded an increase of 4.5%. Most of the titles recorded fairly static readership figures, down by up to 3%. However, Just Seventeen fared fairly badly, down 12.9% to 709,000. Eva’s readership continues to grow, with its highest figure so far, 833,000.

Top Women’s Weeklies

Womens’ Monthlies

Among the women’s monthlies, OK! fared best, with an increase in readership of 36.2%, to 429,000. Marie Claire is fast approaching rival Cosmopolitan in terms of readership; this Jan to June Marie Claire’s figure was up 35.9% to 1,402,000; an increase of 363,000. Cosmopolitan’s figure, while up 2% to 1,730,000, is an actual increase of just 34,000 readers. Company and New Woman both recorded large increases, up 30.2% and 25% respectively. In general the fashion and style titles fared well, but the more specialised titles such as home interest and cookery lost readership.

Needlecraft recorded the biggest decrease in readership, down 28.6%, closely followed by BBC Vegetarian Good Food, down 25.7%. The best read monthly, Good Housekeeping, recorded a decrease of 8.1% to below 2 million; the second best read monthly, Prima also dropped to below 2 million compared to last year, down 15.5%.

Women’s Monthlies With Readership of Over 1 Million