According to the latest Print Measurement Bureau (PMB) fall magazine study, average print readership across all of its measured Canadian titles remained almost the same compared to the previous two fall reports. It currently stands at just over 1 million readers.
The study measured 103 Canadian magazines and includes data on readership, products and brands.
PMB has released readership data biannually since 2009 (it was previously released annually). Compared to the 2011 spring study, average readership of printed titles is up 2% to an average 1,003,000 readers from 984,000.
The magazines with the highest readership (two-year data) included in the fall report include Reader’s Digest (5.6 million), Canadian Living (3.8 million), People (3.4 million), Chatelaine (3.2 million), What’s Cooking (3.2 million), Canadian Geographic (3.2 million), Maclean’s (2.4 million), Canadian House & Home (2.3 million), CAA Magazine (2.2 million) and Canadian Gardening (2.1 million).
The magazines that saw the largest increase in readership (two-year data) in fall 2011 compared to fall 2010 include Summum (34% increase), Canada’s History, which in the fall 2010 report was listed as Canada’s History/The Beaver, saw a 29% increase and Hello! Canada (23% increase). Hello!‘s 2010 figure was from imputed two-year data.
And those magazines that saw the biggest drop in readership (two-year data) in fall 2011 compared to fall 2010 were Vancouver Magazine (30% decrease), TV Week Magazine (27% decrease) and Vervegirl (22% decrease).
Looking at readers-per-copy, the numbers between PMB’s Fall 2009 study and the newest one dipped, then rose again. In fall 2009, the readers-per-copy were 4.81, in fall 2010 they were 4.78. In fall 2011, they are up to 4.93.
The new report also reveals the following comparisons to past fall studies:
• average minutes spent reading is now 41.9, up from 41.3 minutes in 2009 and 40.6 in 2010
• average degree of interest (on a scale of one to 10) was rated at 6.9, compared to 6.8 in both 2009 and 2010
New PMB chairman Kirby Miller, the senior vice-president at House & Home Media, said he’s pleased that people are sharing and spending more time with magazines.
“With the introduction of other digital-style offerings, such as e-readers, it’s good to see the appetite of consumers has not been impacted adversely and that those things can be added into the mix,” said Miller. “It feels like the reading pie is getting bigger rather than [the new digital options] cannibalizing the reading pie.”
The Fall 2011 report also includes demographic-related data. For example, it shows that 12- to 24-year-olds read 3.6 issues of PMB-measured titles per month. The national average for all age groups is 3.7 issues per month.
