Magazines have plenty of issues nowadays--just the wrong kind. The Audit Bureau of Circulations added to their woes Monday with the release of its most recent report, covering the six-month period from January-June 2008, showing circulation falling sharply at a number of big titles, compared to the same period last year. Worse still, the news comes as ad pages are also declining steeply at many titles, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. The results are summarized in a chart below.
Per the ABC figures, several broad categories are seeing both circulation and ad pages drops--including newsweeklies, women's lifestyle and fashion, shelter and business titles. In each category, of course, there are exceptions. Holding up somewhat better were cooking and epicurean and men's lifestyle titles, while celebrity titles were distinctly mixed. Overall, however, the ABC and PIB figures will not have many champagne corks popping in publishers' executive suites.
On average, newsweeklies saw circulation fall 2.8% and ad pages 17.5%, with much steeper drops at some individual titles. At women's fashion and beauty titles, circulation tumbled an average 10.6%, while ad pages were basically flat with an average 2% drop.
Women's lifestyle mags experienced an average circulation drop of 11.5%, as mag pages fell 8.5% on average. A broad group of shelter and domestic titles--including magazines devoted to regional domestic style and living--saw average circ fall 7.2%, as average ad pages slipped 5%.
Business titles also took heavy hits in the first half of the year, with circulation down about 6.5% on average, and ad pages down 8.5%
The three remaining categories were mixed. Circ at celebrity titles was down an average 4.2%; however, average ad pages rose a little over 3% on the strength of a few titles.
Men's lifestyle and fitness titles were down slightly in circulation, with an average drop of 2%, but remained nearly flat in terms of ad pages. Cooking and epicurean titles saw average circulation rise about 2.3%, while ad pages remained flat on average, with a small decline of 0.9%.