PAMCo: magazine readership patterns reshaped by Covid-19

The early impact of coronavirus on magazine readership has been documented in the latest PAMCo report, with the majority of titles recording declines, some severe.

The multi-platform figures, which cover the period April 2019 through to March 2020, show how many special interest titles experienced a decline as the UK began preparing for lockdown.

The precise reasons why different titles performed the way they did is likely to be complex, but generally speaking, it appears the public swapped its reading habits as the pandemic took hold – seeking out hard news, rather than magazine content.

As places of work closed and social distancing was enforced, titles such as Auto Express, for example, saw its total brand reach decline by -41.3% period on period, while Country Life declined by -10.4% and cinephile title Empire was down -13%.

Although lockdown is a reasonable explanation for many of the declines, other titles performed better than usual. For example, matched by a huge rise in lockdown television viewing, almost all the TV listings titles were up, as was BBC Gardeners’ World, which was up more than 63% as people spent more time at home and in good weather.

A full breakdown can be found in the tables below.