ABCs: Carnage for monthly mags with big drop for Dolly
ACP’s 40 year old teen magazine Dolly saw its circulation drop by a painful 27% in the latest round of magazine circulation numbers published today.
The magazine’s sales dropped from more than 140,000 per edition in 2009 to just over 103,000 in 2009 – the biggest percentage fall of any monthly title.
The fall for Dolly – which still leads the teen market – is a rapid turnaround on a year ago when it recorded the third biggest increase, up 18%. The decline coincided with the arrival of editor Tiffany Dunk, who replaced Gemma Crisp and inherited a decision by ACP management to reduce the number of tip-ons which tend to drive short term sales increases.
Meanwhile, Crisp is now the editor of sister title Cleo, which fell by 14%.
It was a brutal set of numbers for the whole magazine industry, with 30 non weekly titles recording a drop of more than 10% of their circulation according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
Only nine magazines grew circulation by more than 10%, led by Morrison Media’s Frankie, up 32.57%.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large. He returned to Mumbrella as Publisher in January 2025
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Wish you had the numbers for the two largest monthlies Australian Womens Weekly and Better Homes and Gardens so we can see what the most popular titles did.And what was the movement in weekly circs?And given Dolly was +18% a year ago their 26% decline puts them at more like -8%.I don’t work in the mag industry but based on this it may be a little unfair to blame the fall on new editor Tiffany Dunk.
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@marcus AWW was -3.24% YOY and BHG was -1.91% YOY. AWW in front by 101,667 copies…
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@ Marcus, happy to help you, email me marketing@auditbureau.org.au
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“I don’t work in the mag industry but based on this it may be a little unfair to blame the fall on new editor Tiffany Dunk”…
Hi Tiffany!
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