Weekly mags ABCs: Zoo bombs, Who climbs, Grazia steady
Lads mag Zoo Weekly has suffered the worst fall in the circulation figures for weekly magazines, losing almost a quarter of its readers in a year.
The ACP title’s circulation fell from 97,320 to 73,018 – a loss of 24.9% – from September 2011 to September 2010, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation.
ACP’s Picture and NW magazines, and West Australian Newspapers’ Quokka, also suffered heavy falls, all down more than 15%.
It was a fairly miserable survey all round, with only one title – Pacific Magazine’s Who – posting a decent increase, up 1.58%.
Grazia editor Kelly Hush, who took on the editorship earlier this year, will be happier with her title’s performance after a long period of serious decline – Grazia recorded a slight increase of 0.42% to 55,259.
Dennis Publishing’s current affairs magazine The Week made its debut on the ABCs three years after launching with a surprisingly flat 25,266.
Australia’s most-read weekly Woman’s Day was down 3.08% to 380,408.
Pacific Magazines boss Nick Chan told Mumbrella that the retail squeeze was partly to blame for the poor circulation figures.
“Overall, magazines are down 4% year-on-year against a backdrop of poor retail sales, which are down 12%,” he said. “And 90% of circulation revenue comes from the newsstand.”
“When conditions are this tough, standing still is not too bad,” he added.
topics
ABC
ACP
Audit Bureau of Circulation
Dennis Publishing
magazines
Media
Pacific Magazines
Zoo Weekly
Gee red ink almost everywhere. Is it social media, the economy, discretionary spending, new taxes or all four?
User ID not verified.
I would say it’s all four – online kills the celeb gossip rags because their stories are out of date before they are even printed. Who can splash $6 every week for a ‘weekly fash mag’ that spruiks expensive luxury goods (when, PS, you can get UK cosmo for cheaper than that). The on-screen digital tv guide has more or less killed TV Week. Woman’s Day and New Idea have hurt their sales significantly with their credibility issues – running made up stories so we don’t know whether to waste our $4 on something that may or may not be true. No amount of relaunches, redesigns and glossy covers can save this situation. It’s not looking good for the weekly mags. Sorry Phil and Nick…
User ID not verified.
must feel real smart to buy ads in mags.
User ID not verified.
not that it makes a huge bee’s dick difference to most readers of this column…but as a point of fact – your headline in where it reads,”The Week flat” is misleading, so is your “Change & Change %” entries (both should read N/A) because with 0/0% they imply zero growth when in fact this is our first ABC Audit figure….as it turns out we’re currently one of the fastest growing weeklies out there doing the rounds.
User ID not verified.
Thanks for flagging that up, Badcock, the headline was misleading – we’ve amended the headline and copy to reflect that.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella