Magazine Circ Drops 2.2 Percent
Winners (Allrecipes) and losers (the newsstand) from the first half of 2015.
Allrecipes had the strongest start to 2015 of any major consumer magazine, while sales on the newsstand continued to crumble, according to the first half Snapshot report from the Alliance for Audited Media.
Overall, paid and verified circulation for the 400-plus titles audited by AAM trickled downward through June, down 2.2 percent for magazines included in both the 2014 and 2015 reports. By category of sale, subscriptions declined 1.5 percent, while single-copies plummeted 11.4 percent.
The newsstand tumble is nothing new. The source has eroded consistently over the past several years, now only accounting for about 6 percent of total circ—that’s down from close to 10 percent five years ago.
Individually, Allrecipes has been the biggest winner so far this year, boosting circulation by 70 percent to 1.1 million, including a 76-percent rise in subscriptions. Even single-copy sales bumped up 9 percent, bucking the industry trend. The good news follows a January rate base increase for the brand.
EatingWell and Food Network Magazine also demonstrated that the epicurean market remains one of the strongest in the business, both posting solid circulation gains above 6 percent.
Interestingly, Diabetes Self-Management and Diabetes Forecast also had two of the most successful starts to the year. The brands were up 37.6 percent and 16.4 percent, respectively, with circulations of 284,000 and 527,000.*
Conversely, auto and celebrity categories had the toughest first six months to the year.
Diesel Power (-13.7 percent) Motor Trend (-6.7), Automobile Magazine (-6.4) and Chevy High Performance (-5.8) were among those with the most significant cuts in the auto category, while In Touch Weekly (-8.5), Star (-7) and OK! Weekly (-5.4) took hits in celebrity.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the percentage changes for Diabetes Self-Management and Diabetes Forecast.
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