The Magazine Industry

Magazines line the shelves of local news agents, supermarkets and stores alike. They are found on coffee tables, trains and in the work place. But how often are they bought? And more importantly how often are they read?

 

There are six types of magazines:

1.     Consumer Magazines: these are the ones you will find sold in newsagents. They come in many different types e.g. gossip, fashion and gardening.

2.      B2B: are magazines that can be found in the workplace. they are often released to inform staff of things and events that are taking/have taken place within the workplace.

3.      Customer Publishing:  these are produced for organisations to give their customers as a form of marketing. For example magazines that are often found for free at the checkouts.

4.      Part Works: Magazines that have pieces attached to the front and you collect them in order to end up with a whole collection/a final product. e.g. model skeleton pieces.

5.      Newspaper supplements: The magazines you get free in newspapers.

6.      Academic Journals: Magazines aimed at certain group of people in education often written to a university degree standard.

The 6 variations are what make up the magazine industry and the circulation of magazines is always expressed in copies per issue. This is to make the results recorded most accurate and it makes it easier to see which types of magazine sell best.

The total circulation for  the first six months in 2014 was 21.2million copies per issue on average. However this had fallen 10% from the previous six months. This could be due to the increased popularity of the internet. People are now able to log on and with a few clicks find all the information they were looking for, for free, meaning they don't have to wait for the copy of the magazine to be published containing the desired content. It is usually quicker and more convenient so therefore not as many magazines are being sold.

 Although magazine circulation* is decreasing magazine readership** is still healthy. On average 1.4 people read a copy of the magazine. They can be found in doctors surgeries and other waiting rooms and although the reader hasn't bought the magazine they are still reading it.

*Magazine circulation is when people buy copies.

**Magazine readership is when people read magazines without necessarily buying them.

 Although magazine sales are falling some genres are doing better than others:

Lads magazines, pop magazines and gossip magazine sales are dropping, whilst Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair and other lifestyle magazines sales are rising.

 
Despite this the most popular magazine in the UK is the TV Choice magazine. It has a circulation of 1,282,276 per issue due to its large target audience. Its content is common and of interest to a lot of people. These sales figures bring in £549,976 per issue and the producers earn a hefty £300,000 from advertising alone per week. This leads to them making a profit of £879,000 per issue.

 

So despite the drop in circulation numbers the industry is still thriving and producers of the magazines are still earning megabucks.