Looking at magazine sales in areas not in lockdown in Australia I am seeing sales volumes on track with the pre-Covid trajectory.
While there are some differences between product categories, the majority are on track for decline. Weeklies are especially vulnerable. I expect that now they are all under the one roof, there will soon be significant shake-up as the trajectory from newsagency sales, if reflected across all retail, would be unhealthy for ad prospects.
As has been the case for years, crosswords are strong as are special interest titles. Both of these categories are differentiators for the newsagents who actively engage with them.
While I hope to have the benchmark analysis completed early next week, the magazine situation is interesting because of the planned expansion into Australia Post and the ownership change of Pacific and then of Bauer.
Mark I suspect there are going to be some pretty big variances in your benchmark results and not only in this category. This quarter must have been an absolute nightmare for Ovato to predict distribution needs.
High Street stores will have stronger results than those in Shopping Centres. Regional will generally be stronger than city. Tourist locations not dependent on interstate or international visitors should perform strongly.
Will be interesting for those of us being fed the headlines in other states to see how those in our channel in Victoria and neighbouring border towns are holding up in comparison to the rest of the country. Regional tourist locations in Victoria and neighbouring border towns may as yet not seen the boom in visitors? I firmly believe it will come once Melbourne comes out of lockdown.
Steve it is, as you note. High street is certainly doing better than mall.
In Victoria, the results are good. Shopping centres are down more than others, as you’d expect. regional Victoria is good – most of these stores are up because many have not left town. i.e. no Queensland migration.
THERE WASTING THERE TIME WITH AUSTRALIA POST AS MOST OUTLETS ARE LICENSED POST OFFICES AND WOULD NOT TOUCH MAGAZINES DUE TO THE SMALL MARGINS AND A BROKEN BUSINESS MODEL CREATED BY NETWORK SERVICES AND BAUER MEDIA