Subscription performance remains strong with more than 62% of titles reporting a year-on-year increase, indicating that publishers continue to invest in subscription marketing despite current trading conditions.
Share of Total Sales
Excluding subscription-only titles, Candis and Saga Magazine, subscriptions as a percentage of total sales remain healthy with Money Week once again retaining the top spot and Reader’s Digest holding on to second place.
Sector Highs and Lows
The TV Listings sector is the star performer with year-on-year growth in excess of 39% and all titles showing an increase. This supports the growing trend that sees consumers staying in rather than going out.
Despite the popularity of social networking sites with teenagers, the Teenage Magazine sector showed a year-on-year increase of 28%. Shout and Sugar were the sector stars in terms of growth.
‘...TV Listings is the star performing sector with all titles showing an increase...’
The Children’s Magazine sector also performed well with growth in excess of 29%, highlighting the popularity of TV characters such as The Simpsons and Doctor Who.
The Men’s Lifestyle sector showed a small increase overall (2%) with weekly title Zoo demonstrating the largest year-on-year growth once again, despite its relatively small subscriber base. The monthlies produced mixed results with BBC Focus showing the greatest increase and Loaded showing the biggest decline.
Mainstream music titles have taken a hit this period leading to a sector decrease of 2.6%. Specialist title Metal Hammer bucks the trend with a year-on-year increase of over 13%
The Women’s Interest sector had a solid performance with 3% growth, led by celebrity gossip and real-life magazines. Hello! takes centre stage with a year-on-year increase of over 110%, fuelled by the nation’s ongoing obsession with high-profile celebrity stories.
There were also some notable declines in subscription volumes within the sector, particularly in the Home Interests sub-sector which could be a reflection of the reduced interest in the property market during 2009.
Publisher Performance
Nearly two thirds of publishers saw their subscription volumes increase year-on-year.
BBC Worldwide once again paves the way in terms of volume growth adding in excess of 56,000 subscriptions during the last year. This was primarily due to the exceptional performance of Radio Times which has seen subscriptions increase by 47.1%.
Bauer Consumer Media, IPC Media Ltd and Hachette Filipacchi (UK) Ltd all had significant volume growth, collectively increasing by over 69,000 subscriptions.
And Finally...
Despite significant variances within sectors, volumes remain healthy overall (down just 0.1%) as publishers continue to favour subscriptions as the preferred route to market and focus their efforts in this area. This ongoing commitment will ensure that subscriptions will continue to increase and grow in popularity!
