ABC Jan-Jun 2003: Celebrity Magazines Continue To Thrive
The latest ABC consumer magazine figures for the January to June 2003 period reveal the thriving nature of the celebrity magazine market as readers turn away from older, more traditional women’s titles in search of the latest gossip on the lives of the rich and famous.
Emap’s celebrity gossip magazine, Closer, put in a strong performance in the six months to June and entered the highly competitive women’s weekly market with circulation of 334,542 less than a year after its launch. The title, which received the backing of a multimillion pound marketing campaign (see Emap Gets Closer To Women’s Market With New Launch), is hitting the spot with its blend of real life stories and high-profile gossip.
Chic Magazine’s weekly New! is also riding high on the celebrity wave and the title, which hit the newstands earlier this year with a low cost cover price of 60p (see Express Enters Celebrity Market), recorded an initial circulation of just under 340,000.
IPC’s more established Now! magazine continued to go from strength to strength with circulation rising by 3.6% year on year to 590,544. The runaway success of Emap’s Heat also showed no signs of slowing in the first half of this year and the title recorded an impressive 18.1% year on year increase to 565,484.
Meanwhile, Condé Nast’s Glamour continued its rapid rise in the women’s monthlies market with a 10.9% year on year improvement in circulation to 576,832. This helped it to extend its lead over rival National Magazine Company’s Cosmopolitan, which slipped by 1.7% during the same period to 462,157.
NatMags is stepping up the pressure on Glamour and plans to launch 50,000 copies of a special travel-sized version of Cosmo at selected retail outlets next month (see Cosmo Moves On Glamour With New Travel-Sized Format).
Elsewhere, Emap’s market leading men’s lifestyle magazine, FHM, saw circulation rise by a solid 3.4% to just above the 600,000 mark, while IPC’s Loaded proved less fortunate with a sharp 15.2% year on year drop to 261,937.
Dennis Publishing’s recently acquired Jack recorded an initial circulation of 33,347 placing it at the lower end of the men’s market. However, the magazine will relaunch later this year with more pages and a new larger format (see Dennis Reveals New Look For Jack Magazine).
The notoriously fickle teenage sector also benefited from the obsession with the celebrity scene and Emap’s weekly gossip magazine, Sneak, reported a circulation of 100,107 after launching last April (see Emap To Launch New Teen Weekly).
Popworld entered the teen sector with an initial circulation of 63,509, while Hachette Filipacchi’s monthly beauty, fashion and entertainment title, Sugar, maintained its market-leading position, despite a 5.8% year on year dip to 326,185.
Meanwhile, IPC’s Uncut boosted the music magazine sector with a significant 26.7% increase in circulation to 105,781. However, the recent success of Emap’s rock music title, Kerrang! appears to have stalled with a sharp 16.2% drop to 70,361.
The full concurrently released figures will be available in MediaTel’s Press database after the embargo time of 12pm today. Analysis of the figures by major sector will appear on MediaTel NewsLine today and tomorrow. Please note that all figures listed in the NewsLine reports are those reported by ABC as of Thursday 14 August. Late submissions and changes may be made after this date and will be added to MediaTel’s Press database.
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