The December 5 issue of Dolly magazine will be the last. The masthead will continue online but for print, this is the end.
This move was only a matter of time. In 2012, Dolly was selling 90,000+ copies an issue. This year, it has been selling 30,000.
The announcement by Bauer Media to close the print edition of Dolly comes just after Pacific Magazines announced the closure of the print edition of Girlfriend.
It is a tough time to be a magazine publisher. 2016 has been a difficult year. The sales and closures have been necessary as publishers tune their businesses for changed circumstances.
The demographic served by Dolly and Girlfriend consumes information differently today than in 2012 when Dolly’s circulation was three times what it is today. In addition to this, the product brands that supported the print product back then now have their own direct to consumer channels that mean they are less reliant on the magazine brands that ‘owned’ the channel to the consumer back then.
This is digital disruption in several levels – the delivery of access to news and curated content and the disruption from brands owning and running their own direct to consumer channels.
The question for newsagents is what have you done to ensure your business attracts the Dolly / Girlfriend shopper?
The closure of the titles will not cause a significant drop-off as that has happened since 2012. What have you been doing to appear to these shoppers as you need them given the ageing population – you need new people in your pipeline?
While the closures are confronting, there are launches of more long-tail titles that present us with opportunities in specialisation. I have received three submissions this week from Australian publishers launching new niche titles into the marketplace, publishers only relying on the newsagency channel to reach their prospective readers, publishers with little or no focus on subscriptions.
While the low margin on magazines is a major challenge for gaining newsagent interest, the opportunity to be a specialist, and through that to attract new traffic, is appealing. Magazines are important to our businesses. We should welcome launches and help those titles find readers, especially the titles that sell exclusively in the newsagency channel.
Footnote: For an excellent article on the Dolly move, read Miranda Ward’s article at Mumbrella.
I agree with supporting new titles, but I think the major challenge we face is from the distribution side of the channel.
the distributors & publishers always seem to blame the newsagents for early returns etc but do nothing to fix over allocation of mags. The lack of will to correct this has to be boardering on nothing more than corruption by the distibutors.
“the opportunity to be a specialist, and through that to attract new traffic, is appealing. Magazines are important to our businesses. We should welcome launches and help those titles find readers, especially the titles that sell exclusively in the newsagency channel.” – this.