ABCs: Every ACP weekly suffers circulation fall
ACP’s stable of weekly magazines had a grim set of audit results with every one of its weekly titles seeing a sales decline.
Among the horror stories for ACP was gossip title OK which lost 15% of its sales compared to the same time last year and NW, down 12%. Meanwhile, lads’ mag Zoo was down more than 10%, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations numbers for April to June.
Although it also declined, ACP’s Woman’s Day managed to stay just the right side of 400,000 sales.
Pacific Magazines’ Famous was the only title to see a significant increase – up by nearly 10%.
No wonder the mag world is doing it tough. There is too much choice and compitition in this trash mag catagory. Whats the point of difference for each one when every single one of them feature the exact same celeb pictures and false stories? i can see why ‘famous’ magazine hasnt declined so much as the others and thats because the price is significantly lower than the rest. I say reduce the prices or come up with something more refreshing than having ‘brangelina’ on the cover every single week. its getting old.
I reckon a weekly release of the circulatuion of Womans day would be a much more valuable indicator of financial climate than CPI or inflation or unemployment figures. Current loosening of purse strings I bet the current figure is back towards that 410k figure. In media we know earlier when a recession is biting and when it getting better. From both an advertising sales perspective and a circulation figure. We should publishing these numbers as true consumer and purchaser confidence indicators.
I used to love buying the latest magazines. Now I’d rather read gossip websites or play around on Facebook. Sad time for magazines.
Well I have to agree with you there Mr. Mugobme. Maybe you should be on some of these committees … hehehe.
Mr Grono you are very intelligent man! When I rule the world you will have to be shot!
Seriously John… Just imagine an advertising wellness indicator published once a month. Could be made up of NA’s across for three major networks in their top ten progs for the next week. Womans day Circ week on week up or down… And how many Col/CM’s of of advertising in the five major dailies across the country up or down on the previous week.
I reckon we would be a true indicator of the state of the nation…
Well I was actually thinking of having the data so as to feed into models and reports to clients as to whether the paid ads did anything for the client’s sales figures.
But now that you have mentioned wellness indicator and being shot … I’m coming around to your POV.
Funny how the figures seem to correlate with price – I’m pretty sure (but not 100%) that Famous dropped their price this year while the other trashy mags either stayed the same or went up. With so many of the mags to choose from, looks like we’ll go for the cheapest of the lot every time. Or Perez Hilton. Either one.