New data from the Print Measurement Bureau (PMB) suggests that consumer interest in Canadian magazines has remained stable over the past five years.
Average readership of the 90 titles measured by PMB in the Fall 2013 study was 1.04 million, up slightly from 1.02 million in the 2009 study. The average readers-per-copy number—5.3—is 10% higher than it was in the Fall 2009 study.
Consumers spent an average of 41 minutes with magazines last year, also in line with previous studies, while the degree of interest in publications has remained stable at 6.9 out of 10.
As always, however, the report paints a picture of titles headed in different directions.
While topline readership shows that Reader’s Digest maintained its status as Canada’s most widely read magazine with 5.02 million monthly readers, it doesn’t show that it has shed 325,000 monthly readers in the past year alone. Readership of the troubled title—which last week announced that it has outsourced its circulation marketing to TC Media—has fallen precipitously since it achieved a historical high of 7.92 million monthly readers in 2002.
The country’s second largest title, TC Media’s Canadian Living, saw its monthly readership grow 0.6% to 3.8 million, while the third-largest title, Canadian Geographic, saw monthly readership increase 2.6% to 3.65 million. People, the fourth-largest publication in the country, saw its monthly readership fall 6.5% to 3.1 million.
Qu’est-ce qui mijote remained the most widely read French title, with its 1.2 million monthly readers up slightly from 1.17 million in the 2012 study. TC Media’s Coup de Pouce saw its monthly readership increase to 1.17 million, while readership of Rogers Media’s Chatelaine dropped to 916,000 from 959,000 in the year-earlier period.
