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The magazine industry is in turmoil. No it isn't, the magazine industry is doing rather well, thank you. Celebrity magazines are shedding readers in their thousands. Well, some are, but others are adding sales all the time. Men's magazines have had their day. Not really, because they were previously artificially high.
These contradictions, a mixture of gloom interspersed with rays of sunshine, have been part of the British magazine market climate for almost a decade. The rain clouds gather before every half-yearly release of the officially audited circulation figures produced by ABC only for us to perceive better weather than expected in some areas. The forecasters, as so often, have been proved wrong.
But the problem is that there are so many magazines, with different market segments, different publishing frequencies and different histories that it would be extremely unlikely for every story to be same.
There cannot be any doubt that a dispassionate analyst would conclude that the boom times for the industry are over. Publishers and editors know that.
It does not mean that a magazine won't come along and surprise us all with a rapid sales rise. That can always happen. But the magazine business as a whole, in Britain and in the United States, is finding it increasingly difficult to attract both readers and advertisers.
It might seem mad to say that as one thumbs through those titles with endless pages of glossy ads. The amount of space doesn't reveal the underlying truth, that it is becoming harder than ever to convince media buyers that the costs are worth continuing loyalty. This parlous state of affairs is highlighted in the latest research by the authoritative survey of magazine trends by the International Federation of the Periodical Press. Its FIPP 2007-8 report predicts that UK magazines' share of ad spend is set to fall from 13% in 2007 to 12.6% this year. Though that may be offset by a predicted 3% increase in revenue, some titles will undoubtedly suffer from advertising slumps.
As the FIPP report notes, it is the continued rise of the internet as a marketing medium that is draining away ad spend from the magazine sector, especially from consumer magazines. Worse, of course, is the fact that it isn't magazine websites that are getting the benefit.
The reason for the advertisers' reluctance to fork out is obvious. Sales of once-popular titles are vanishing, as these ABC figures for the sixth months from July to December last year indicate. Celebrity weeklies are totally out of fashion now. Closer, Heat, and Now all fell by more than 11% year on year while Hello! slipped a further 5%. Does Bauer really think its purchase of Closer and Heat from Emap was such a good wheeze, I wonder?
The men's magazines continued their steep declines. Loaded went down 30% and Maxim by 40% while their rowdy cousins, Nuts and Zoo, fell by 8.9 % and 12.8% respectively. FHM, though it enjoyed a reasonable six months, registered a year-on-year fall of 18%.
Then again, there were odd reasons to be cheerful. OK! goes on bucking the trend with a rise of 9% to 683,451, taking it to more than 275,000 ahead of its once-dominant rival, Hello!
Esquire did well, with a 14% rise to 59,800, but that is a small total and probably benefited at the expense of Arena, which dropped 27% to just 25,232 copies. More proof that the men's market is failing. Contrast that with secure titles like Good Housekeeping, still selling more than 450,000 an issue, and Glamour, only slightly down at 550,000. They have avoided the dramatic ups and downs elsewhere. There is a lot to be said in this volatile and declining market for stability.
MORE worrying, however, is the failure of magazines expected to do well to make a breakthrough. The most obvious example is Grazia, which recorded an 8% rise but, at 227,083 a week, it is hardly threatening monthly women's magazines. Similarly, Easy Living, up just 2%, seems becalmed. This is significant because it suggests that the vibrancy of the magazine market, its penchant for launches, is threatened by the poor public response to new titles.
One innovation that some commentators imagined might reverse the trend was the launch by Mike Soutar of a free title, ShortList, aimed at that ever-elusive, young, up-market male. It fell some 40,000 copies short of achieving its 500,000 weekly distribution target, but that's better than any paid-for by a wide margin. Giving away copies is hit and miss but a properly conducted survey claims that 86% of the readers are male, 82% are ABC1, and the average age is 30.
Early days, of course, but if advertisers come aboard it could prove to be a very shrewd move, and maybe, just maybe, going free is the future.
No disrespect to Soutar, but I sincerely hope not.
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