ABCs: Weekly magazines feel the pinch Olivia Collings
The stuttering weekly magazine market is showing the strain of higher interest rates and the growth of online gossip channels, according to media buyers.
All ABC audited magazines bar OK! and Zoo Weekly reported lower circulation figures compared to the same first quarter period last year.
“It’s not been good news in the last 12 months. In the past year there have been many interest rate rises, affecting the purchasing of luxury items, such as weekly magazines,” said Lesley Marriott, investment director at Universal McCann.
“We noticed the trend in the December data, that celebrity magazines were slowing and by these figures there has not been a change.”
Overall the weekly market lost more than 120,000 sales in the past year and was not showing signs of bouncing back, with most showing a drop since the last quarter.
“OK! magazine is bucking the trend, but its growth has also slowed and could be a knock-on affect from it changing to a weekly magazine in October 2006,” said Marriott.
Starcom national activation and investor director Bob Goodge put the decline in celebrity magazines down to Australians preferring more real-life stories to celebrity gossip and its availability from other sources.
“The fact that we can get gossip online now, and through TV quicker means people don’t feel the need to buy celebrity magazines,” Goodge said.
Suzanne Monks, Pacific Magazines group publisher for Famous and New Idea, said they were not surprised by the figures, but were addressing the situation by rolling out changes they have been working on for the past few months.
“Next week we will be launching a new design for New Idea and a new TVC featuring Johanna Griggs. We are confident this will reside well with our readers,” Monks said.
Likewise, Who publisher Fiona Legdin said the magazine had made many changes in the past few months to address fallingcirculation.
“Pacific Magazine is investing a lot into Who and we have made those changes to get it back to its origins,” Legdin said.
Last week Who launched a new TVC resurrecting the Who song Who Are You? to reconnect with the original readership.
Despite the decline in the market, ACP will be launching Grazia, a weekly fashion and celebrity gossip magazine, in August, in partnership with Hearst Corporation.
Even men’s genre success story Zoo Weekly, despite growth in the last year, was down on the last quarter, meaning it too appears to have stabilised.
According to Simon Davies, OMD head of print, its success has come at the expense of other men’s magazines in the monthly market. “It was in the right place at the right time,” said Davies.
Starcom’s Goodge agreed that Zoo’s success has come through its monopoly in the market.
“Zoo Weekly has cornered a niche market and is doing well, mainly because it does not have any competition,” he said.
