Report: City, State, Regional Magazines Double Circulation in Last Decade

The combined circulations of city, state and regional magazines have doubled in the past decade, with 33 of the 76 magazines audited by ABC posting gains and just 17 with circulation losses, according to the February 12 issue of Capell's Circulation Report.

CCR's analysis shows that city, state and regional magazines now represent the largest publishing category with 300 titles, 100 of which operate under controlled-circ models. The 76 publications audited by ABC have a combined circulation of more than 31 million and eight of the titles have circulations of over a million including AAA Westways, Southern Living, Via, AAA Going Places, AAA Living, AAA World, Home & Away and Sunset.

The biggest circulation gains over the past 10 years were made by Orange Coast, up 215 percent; Phoenix Home & Garden, up 70 percent; Carolina Country, up 60 percent; D Magazine, up 43 percent; Caribbean Travel & Life, up 35 percent; Atlanta, up 29 percent; Southern Accents, up 27 percent; Delaware Today and Rural Arkansas, both up 23 percent; and Palm Springs Life, up 22 percent.

Among the 17 reporting losses over the past 10 years are Midwest Outdoor, down 42 percent; Home and Away, down 35 percent; Yankee, down 28 percent; and Minnesota Monthly and Alaska, both down 27 percent.

The analysis also found:

Small circulation titles are more common than large circulation titles among city, state and regional magazines, with ABC-audited titles averaging circulations of 150,000.
Titles growing the fastest are located in the South, while the ones with the biggest losses can be found in the East.
The number of titles selling more than 1,000 pages of advertising in 2006 was up 54 percent over the past decade, and almost 30 percent of ABC-audited city, regional and state publications sell over 1,000 pages per year.

Top 20 newstand sellers, ranked by their June 2006 sales

Magazine - June 2006 Sale