Monday, February 08, 2010

Finally, Some Good News for Magazines

After a punishing first half of 2009 for magazine sales at the newsstand, many of the industry’s biggest newsstand sellers witnessed sales declines begin to at least level out in the second half of the year.

Single copy sales declined 12.4% in the first six months of the year. It should be noted that results were partly affected by a disruption in the wholesaler delivery chain which led to delays in getting issues to stores. The challenging economy is also at blamed for a decline in single-copy sales.

In the second half, though, single-copy sales declines narrowed for big newsstand sellers like People, In Style, Glamour, Family Circle and Cosmopolitan.

Not all shared in the improvement. Good Housekeeping’s newsstand sales fell nearly 30% on top of a 17.7% decline in the first half. Vogue was down 15% and Men’s Health, 14%.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Will people ever read magazines as they had in past? Appears the internet is so real time and it is free. The youths of America have transitioned all to well to this new media. Now intro the electronic book readers, what will happen to the printed media going forward. The publishers really must must explore other models if they are to survive.

Anonymous said...

Here is some news from Korea.
President of Seoul Metro Subway said "We are considering service that people can rent e-book at the subway station and can use in the subway".
I expect that in this situation will be extend to Global Market, mainly major city of would, if the service will be succeed.
Actually, it is not easy to find newsprint in the subway without free newsprint, most of pepole check news by their own mobile phone now.

P. Scott Vallely said...

It should be noted that the second half, while better than the first half, was still poor. The second half was down 11.2% from 2008. Single issue sales have always been effected severely in recessions. Although the newsstand sales are a small percent of overall publication sales, they are very profitable and potentially introduce new readers to subscribe.

Anonymous said...

Per the ABC, magazine industry overall, total paid circulation declined 2.2 percent year-over-year with single-copy sales down 9.1 percent.