Dollar sales of North American magazines fell 6.1% in the second quarter, consistent with the previous two quarters, according to the latest figures from MagNet, an aggregation of magazine wholesalers providing data to the publishing industry.
The organization also reported a 6.2% decline in dollar sales for the first half of the year.
While noting the first-half numbers are better than what the industry has experienced in some previous years, it also noted unit sales continued to decline at a double-digit rate.
It said the average cover price per unit sold, which has risen to US$5.55 from US$5.28 a year earlier, helped mitigate any dollar sales losses. MagNet attributed the increase to a change in the mix of titles being purchased by consumers, who are passing up lower-priced celebrity and tabloid titles in favour of higher-priced specials.
MagNet said the “continual sales decline” of the weekly celebrity title category and the women’s category means there will never again be an increase in overall newsstand sales in either units or dollars. It said publishers in those categories have settled on a business strategy that provides cheap subscriptions in order to put up their rate bases.
The report tempered some of the gloom around the industry by pointing out that many titles are doing “quite well” on the newsstand, with 136 titles growing both their unit and dollar sales.
MagNet also noted titles with less than four issues in the first half of the year including specials, showed “good growth” in both unit and dollar sales. Titles in the food/wine, general interest, game/puzzle/crossword, entertainment, recreation, lifestyle and science categories saw unit and dollar sales increase 3% and 10% respectively.
While titles in the celebrity and women’s categories accounted for 36.4% of newsstand sales in the first six months of the year, unit sales fell 14.3% and dollar sales 12% compared to the corresponding year-earlier period.
Dollar sales fell across most major retail channels, most notably convenience stores (-22.5%), drug stores (-15.7%) and supermarkets (-5.3%), with MagNet noting some drugstore chains reduced magazine space, several convenience store chains exited the business entirely, and the number of traditional newsstands declined.
