PAMCo: magazines continue to grow reach via digital

The latest cross-platform audience figures for UK magazines (April – Mar 2019) reveal an almost universal decline in print readership across the sector, though many titles are successfully offsetting those declines with growing digital reach.

In the general magazine market, Conde Nast’s GQ expanded its monthly reach the most, up 35% period-on-period and 94% over the year to a total brand reach of 1.8m – despite a -1.4% PoP decline in print reach. The title made its largest gains across mobile and tablet, up 60.2% and 29.5% PoP, respectively.

Hearst’s Esquire also saw its readership grow despite a -12.8% PoP decline in print, up 2.8% overall due to a 12.9% increase in mobile readership and a 28% increase in tablet. The title now reaches 627,000 monthly readers.

Meanwhile, Dennis Publishing’s The Week also recorded a positive quarter, now reaching just over 1.1m readers (+5% PoP) following growth across all digital platforms, including a 27.8% growth in mobile readership.

However, a number of magazines fared less well. While Dennis’ Auto Express also managed to offset a -11.7% decline in print over the period with digital growth – up 8.3% overall to just over 1.9m readers – the title was down -30.2% compared to this time last year, with YoY declines across all platforms.

The most popular magazine in the general market, Immediate Media’s Radio Times, also saw its reach fall. The title was down -3.3% over the period to a readership of 8.5m – with falling reach across all platforms except desktop.

Freebie Time Out was down -5.1% PoP and -9.8% YoY to a reach of just under 3.8m, recording declines across mobile and tablet as well as a -25.7% YoY fall in print.

Additionally, all three TV magazine titles in the general weekly market – TV & Satellite Week, TV Times, and What’s on TV – recorded a poor second quarter of the year, down -19.8%, -16.7% and -11.3% PoP, respectively.

However, TV & Satellite Week managed to grow its reach 25.4% YoY to 845,000, while all three titles saw a 84.5% YoY boost to their mobile readership.

The published media industry was the first medium to be able to measure audiences across all platforms – see the tables below for further details on all magazine markets.