Newsagents would not be surprised to hear that FHM magazine has dropped 50% of its sales. We have seen this in-store. mUmBRELLA has the story.
This whole space continues to be a challenge. My sense is that publishers are not offering a lad’s mag which caters to the Australian marketplace.
More broadly, the mUmBRELLA article includes this from Matt Stanton, CEO of ACP magazines:
“ACP is progressively offering new ways for readers to engage with our magazine brands. We currently offer 36 digital editions of ACP magazines, and the growing number of people interacting with our mastheads on those applications and platforms is not yet reflected in circulation figures.
“Our digital distribution strategy will allow our readers to access our content when and where it suits them, enhancing their engagement and enjoyment of our magazines, attracting new readers and strengthening the brands themselves.”
It’s been a tough audit for a bunch of publishers. I’ll pick on some more titles in the next few posts.
“lad’s mag”, how outdated does that sound?
Mark
I don’t believe the magazine industry, as a whole, is in turmoil. One section of it appears to be in trouble.
The latest ABC audit reports many specific interest titles and a few large circulation titles have increased in circulation. This suggests to me that many buyers have either tightened their belts or are choosing to give the ‘lifestyle’ and ‘gossip’ and ‘fad’ titles the flick.
For 40+ years the print media, initially newspapers then magazines, has been intent on sensationalising everything, gradually breaking down the barriers of decency by encouraging sticky-beaking into peoples’ private lives (I’m old enough to remember when actors and actresses were called film stars, not celebrities, and ‘lifestyle’ hadn’t been invented).
In the last 10+ years there’s been a huge increase in the number of new titles being published.
More recently, the end of the ‘greed is good’ era has crept over the horizon.
Put these three things together and what do you get? A short life cycle and predictable failure.
This could be the beginning of the end of the ‘media trash’ cycle.
Istvan I was talking about lad’s mags and not the whole channel.
A bit picky Mark. What about my premise that customers have either tightened their belts or are choosing to give the ‘lifestyle’, ‘gossip’, ‘fad’ [and ‘trashy’] titles the flick and the reasons why the big circulation drops in those spaces might be occurring?
Istvan that’s possible. The key for any publisher is to deliver what the consumer wants. This explains growth of other titles.
Mark Dapin’s column in yesterday’s Good Weekend talks about why these types of mags eventually fail.
Ah yes… a failing mag, one i can’t sell, haven’t sold more than one in the last four months, so now I’m sent 8 instead of my usual 2 or 3 ???? What the heck!? Getting very annoyed at mag supply in general.