Magazine Newsstand Sales Drop 12 Percent

NEW YORK — Consumers are buying fewer magazines at newsstands given the deep recession and the availability of plenty of free reading material online.

An industry group said Monday that single-copy sales tumbled 12 percent in the first half of this year compared with the same period in 2008. That followed a year-over-year decline of 11 percent during the second half of last year.

Total circulation, including subscriptions, edged down 1 percent.

The figures were released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, based on 521 magazines that gave circulation numbers for both years. The total circulation of those titles stands at roughly 340 million.

Total paid subscriptions held steady, but the roughly 36 million magazines sold at newsstands and other retailers account for a disproportionate amount of publishers' earnings because subscriptions are generally discounted. Publishers are often able to prop up overall circulation – and meet guarantees they make to advertisers – by deeply discounting subscriptions.

Hearst Corp.'s Cosmopolitan is still the most popular magazine at newsstands, though sales fell nearly 8 percent to 1.6 million.

In overall circulation figures, Playboy and TV Guide Magazine fared the worst, down 9 percent and 10 percent, respectively. People magazine's circulation fell nearly 5 percent and Reader's Digest saw a 3 percent decline.

Comments

[sweetnessandlight]

Well that's just because everybody already has a front cover picture of obama from all issuers of repute.

[IndelibleVoice]

Saw this one coming... paper media is gone and something tells me books will be next. Web surfers are use to getting information (not to mention software, games, ect.) for free online. The Internet cat's out of the bag and it will be hard for the wealthy elite media moguls to put it back.

What really fascinates me is that CEOs and boards either didn't see this coming or procrastinated and didn't jump online until the idea of a "free web" took shape. Aren't these guys suppose to be smart?

[TruGal]

They're simply too expensive. It breaks my heart, as a a diehard lover of magazines, to see so many of them unsold at the end of each month, or selling cycle, at grocery stores. What happens to all that great stuff? Does it get recycled, or donated to hospitals or charities? I wish I knew.
I used to spend more money than I care to admit on magazines, but something shifted when the ad pages surpassed the editorial pages. I felt cheated when it turned out I could read the whole thing in less than fifteen minutes, and then had no desire to keep it around in case I wanted to look at it again. The one exception is Vanity Fair. I look forward to it each month. But with the "new" Newsweek, I feel like screaming. The price is astronomical for a weekly, and it looks like they chose style over substance.
I'll confess a secret here... I go through the recycling bin in our apt. bldg. that has newspapers and magazines other residents have thrown away. They're rich enough to subscribe. I reap the benefits.

[toocoldout]

I don't like Newsweek either. The only news magazine I'm consistently impressed with is Time magazine.