15 Feb 10

2009 (H2) magazine circulation figures

MediaCom offer a round-up of the latest magazine circulation figures

The February posting of the magazine circulation figures from July to December 2009 has once again presented a mixed bag of results across what is a hugely diverse marketplace.

With average circulations totalling 75 million in the latter half of 2009, the consumer magazine market has remained static year on year although actively purchased copies have taken a slight dip in the July to December figures.

The women's weeklies sector has posted it's first market increase in two and a half years. Successful relaunches and redesigns have helped individual sectors, but it's the Celebrity Market that has noticeably increased figures. New and Star have both seen huge growth with over 50% increases in circulation period on period. New is now the market leading women's weekly with an actively purchased figure of almost 600k. A large proportion of this growth can be attributed to the increasing use of multipacks, however continued investment in titles has undoubtedly proved successful too. The multipack issue is something which has caused controversy recently. Multipacks (where one or more title is packed with another title e.g OK, New and Star have been packed and sold together, as one such example) are genuine marketing tools. It does remain to be seen however, when done on a regular basis, whether such practices are good value for the consumer or ways to manipulate circulations. It will be up to all of us to decide the value of these on a case by case basis. MediaCom have been heavily involved in changing the rules of multipacking and will continue to ensure that transparency is key.

In the Women's Monthly Marketplace it was the more practical titles which fared well such as Woman and Home, Good Housekeeping and Essentials. This was helped by strong brand credentials and the fact that paginations stayed buoyant which consumers felt gave them good value for money.

The Men's Market continues to suffer with its headline figure buoyed only by the free weekly publications (Shortlist and Sport) and the clear leader in the market place, Mens Health. With the paid for men's weeklies doing poorly. Men seem to be turning online for more salacious content (the mainstay of the weeklies editorial) and relying on print products for the more discerning read.

For a copy of MediaCom's in depth analysis of the figures by marketplace please contact your team.