What next for magazines?
David Evans, business director at MediaTel.co.uk, looks at the current health of the magazine market and asks whether it can withstand the pressures of the recession…
The breaking news that Arena has been suspended, along with the announcement last week from NatMags regarding staff cuts shows that the recession is beginning to hit home in the magazine sector. Our MediaTel event next Wednesday, The Future of Magazines, will cover the big issues affecting the market at the moment.
The theory that consumer magazines are more recession-proof than other media has been touted in the past, with both the loyalty of readers and advertisers felt to be strong enough to withstand economic downturns.
Evidence for this argument can be provided by the recent ABC results for arguably the most established sector, women’s lifestyle, increasing circulations by 7.4% year on year. This shows that the monthly fix of Glamour or Cosmo is perhaps harder to let go of than the daily visit to Starbucks.
However, other sectors provide a less compelling argument. Only Hello! grew circulation with many key celebrity titles, including OK! and Heat, suffering double digit YoY declines. As we have seen today, the (paid-for) men’s sector is also an area that has been decimated in recent years.
So, what does this tell us? Are consumers’ tastes altering with the change in economic outlook or are the declines simply a result of a saturated market?
Over 200 consumer titles have a circulation figure of over 100,000 and over 400 have a circulation of 50,000+, that’s a lot of magazines out there still being paid for on a regular basis. Like other “established” media, magazines are still in relatively rude health, but will have to embrace elements of change to survive whilst holding onto the core reasons for success.
Behavioural targeting is a current online buzzword, but the specialist nature of magazines has been doing this for years. Placing relevance alongside quality editorial is also something that the online industry is also struggling to emulate whereas magazines has always been the natural environment for this to take place. The fact that major publishers are also looking to grow the market with new launches shows that the basic proposition is still something that resonates with consumers.
The challenges facing the market as a whole, alongside other areas such as the cross-media sell, paid v free, embracing new technologies and the likely evolution of circulation figures will be discussed at next Wednesday’s seminar by Evelyn Webster, chief exec IPC, Stevie Spring, chief exec of Future Publishing, Greg Miall, MD of Sport magazine, Dominic Williams, press director of Carat and the irrepressible Ray Snoddy. Please visit http://seminars.mediatelgroup.co.uk to book your ticket.