Reflections On The ABCs
James Papworth, marketing and strategy manager at IPC Media, discusses the current health of the magazine market in the wake of last week’s ABCs…
There are 3,366 magazines registered at the Periodical Publishers Association (PPA), more than ever before, which pretty much means that there is a title for everyone.
A few years ago, in the days before abject media channel promiscuity, such choice meant that we bought the title we liked, and we liked it because we bought it. This virtuous circulation circle was repeated ABC after ABC.
Now times are different. The nation is less brand-loyal and the market is more dynamic. Big stories and big marketing budgets sway sales (at least in the short term), new launches muscle-in, and the ABC figures get stirred up.
Great news for journalists and ad space traders. Star up 47%, hurrah! and the contract rates get renegotiated. Real down 21%, boo! and the contract rates get renegotiated.
The hubbub around individual titles is natural. It’s individual titles that we have a relationship with. If we like them then we get concerned if their sales are falling. If it’s a title we regularly read then we might even regard it as a personal slight on us.
If sales are up, and its a title we regularly read then we can take that as affirmation of our choice and rest well in the knowledge that we are part of a thriving community of readers.
These ups and downs of individual titles are all part of the process and are to be expected. After all, there are a finite number of magazine buyers and a finite number of magazines they will buy. Multi-purchase is on the up, but as Star and Real demonstrate, there is plenty of ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’. Great if you publish Paul, not so rosy if you publish Peter.
These up and downs of individual titles should also not detract from an overriding truth about the wider industry – that it’s doing rather well.
Despite the invention of a hundred digital radio stations, a thousand digital TV channels and a billion digital websites, magazines (non-digital and made of paper) are selling more than ever.
That figure of 3366 is the highest ever, consumer spend on magazines is over £2 billion per annum and according to the PPA, overall volumes are up 3.5% year on year, which in real terms means an extra 51million copies. Basically, around 1.4 billion magazines are sold every year. That’s about 43 every second.
But tastes and lifestyles change and the influences of other media change. Perhaps it’s not surprising then that the biggest magazine success is the women’s weeklies market. In an age of digital-sound-bite, channel switching, life by txt and the WAG, it’s the fast paced, impulse buy, picture led, celebrity filled end of magazines which is performing best. Choice is up to twenty-something titles, circulation is up 9.8% (IPC Marketforce) and hundreds of female ratings are being delivered every week.
Celebrity titles prove just how intertwined media have become. Had it not been for soap operas, footballers wives (the real ones), Big Brother and the X Factor, the celebrity magazine sector, as is, would not exist. But without celebrity magazines would Big Brother and the X Factor still exist?
Monthly titles, less editorially influenced by the slings and arrows of outrageous reality TV shows, are less susceptible to hot-blooded ABC variations. Indeed, it is the security of familiar content that brings readers back month after month, to part with both money, and that even more valuable commodity, time.
Another example of multi-media influence may be seen in Men’s lifestyle. Although dropping 23% in ABC, young men are highly likely to migrate satisfaction of their magazine needs to the on-line versions. IPC’s Loaded may have lost 21% in traditional sales but that’s more than made up for by the 400,000 young men who regularly interact with the brand on-line. The PPA’s call for recognition of how on-line versions of a magazine should be included in the off-line figures would seem to carry some weight.
Other sectors, which should have performed badly because of lifestyle changes have also done OK. TV magazines for example, for whom the bell tolled as soon as the EPG was invented (over 60% of homes have digital TV), dropped just 1%, still selling over 5 million copies a week and reaching over 10 million adults. Most TV shows would be very happy with that.
The magazine industry is convoluted, complex and often contradictory. Some editors will be having strategy meetings to reverse their decline. Others will be having a beer to toast their success. Some publishers will be embracing digital platforms with open arms. Others will be grasping them like nettles.
Whichever Paul robs whichever Peter, the net result is a vibrant industry, fuelled by innovation in paper publications whilst edging toward other platforms. It was in the last ABC and you know what? It will be in the next.