Custom magazines outshone the other categories in the first Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) figures released for this year.
This category showed a massive overall growth of 47.8 percent, according to circulation figures for the period between January and March 2007, which were released on Thursday.
The real growth however was four percent.
Gordon Patterson, chairman of the ABC board, says the growth in custom magazines is due to established titles becoming members of the circulation monitoring body. The biggest custom magazines are Dish & Skottel (1.48-million), Edgars Club Magazine (916,473) and Foschini Retail Group Club Magazine (848,819).
Free distribution publications grew by 34 percent with 46 new magazines and newspapers launched, bringing the number to 180.
Overall consumer magazine growth was 4.2 percent with real growth at -2.4 percent, but business titles performed exceptionally well, growing by 36.8 percent.
Financial Mail went up from 25,295 (ABC January to March 2006) to 29,951 (copy sales + subscriptions), Finweek went up to 30,602 (copy sales + subscriptions) from 27,094, and Maverick grew to 6,239 (copy sales + subscriptions) from 4,870. Newcomer Entrepreneur is selling 8,367 copies.
Leisure-focused magazines showed the second largest growth in the consumer magazine sector, increasing by 22.3 percent.
But the real battleground appeared to be in women’s interest magazines where Media24’s Move!, aimed at black women in lower income groups, continued to outperform its older and more established counterparts, showing a massive growth of almost 100 percent.
Its paid-for circulation went up from 59,519 (ABC January – March 2006) to an impressive 119,350.
However, says Patterson, 78 percent of titles in the women’s interest category remain either unchanged or are declining.
Two new titles – InStyle (34,877) and True Love Babe (31,517) – were launched while Me! was discontinued.
Marie Claire remained almost unchanged from last year’s 42,185 to 43,800 (copy sales + subscriptions).
Men’s magazines grew by 10.6 percent, and this was attributed to the entry of two new titles – Manwees (5,216) and Zoo Weekly/Weekliks (31,579).
With regard to dailies, although tabloids targeted at the mass market continue to grow, 47 percent of the daily newspapers showed no growth during this period with 16 percent of them experiencing a decline. Only 42 percent showed a year-on-year growth.
Weekly newspapers remain healthy with real growth of 9.8 percent.
In conclusion, Patterson said the larger weekend titles were holding their own ground and even growing, while new magazines and re-launched titles were defining the growth landscape.
‘In summary, although vital, the print industry is beginning to experience a slow-down as predicted. Increased competition will encourage change.”
Changes that were introduced in this quarter were the inclusion of back issues which are defined as ‘those copies that were distributed within the next issue period relevant to the frequency of the publication.”
Digital editions are also included but these must be identical to their print counterpart, in all aspects, including advertising.
Digital editions are only allowed for the titles of members who have print editions.
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