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Magazine Sales Down But Comfort Reading Shows Signs Of Life

02 Sep 2010
Posted by Market and Main Media

In contrast to overall magazine circulation (which is down again for the fourth straight reporting period), 10 titles saw boosts of at least 5.8% in single-copy sales for the first six months of 2010. As reported by Media Life, the top sellers at newsstands were those that focused on “distraction, as in distracting readers from the problems in their everyday lives.” For example, home decorating, healthy living and celebrity-focused titles saw greater gains than news or finance. The top five magazines included:

  • Clean Eating with the biggest year-to-year increase in newsstandsales with a jump of 35.1%
  • House Beautiful increased by 34.6%
  • More increased by 16.3%
  • People’s StyleWatch increased by 14.97%
  • Women’s Health increased by 10.3%

The “distraction theme” was evident among those titles that did well in overall circulation (including subscription sales and newsstand sales) as well. The top overall gainer was Food & Family, a quarterly comfort food title that saw its subscription base shoot up by 648% in the first six months of this year.

However, the publications with the most overall paid circulation were the more mainstream magazines that target the general population as opposed to smaller segments that target readers with shared interests. AARP the Magazine and AARP Bulletin have the most overall circulation with more than 25.3 million total paid circulation, though both were down versus the first half of 2009.

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