This story originally appears on FOLIO: sister site, minonline.
In the August 15 min, we begin our review of magazine circulation for first-half 2011. We have seen it many times before and will almost certainly see it many times again as magazines’ all-important single-copy sales continue a decline that–for the most part–has been steady since the mid-1980s. Then, it was when "store books" Family Circle and Woman’s Day put subscriptions in the mix to maintain their rate bases.
Today’s whammies are the digital technology that has produced an avalanche of media coupled with a weak economy and high gasoline prices that make consumers think twice about driving to their favorite retail outlet (still the primary source for magazine sales outside of big cities). It is no surprise that the August 9-released Audit Bureau of Circulations’ Fas-Fax for first-half 2011 revealed that cumulative newsstand sales for the 418 tracked magazines were -9.2% versus first-half 2010.
Read the rest of the story here.
