ABC figures show strong performance for women’s interest magazines, with newly released magazine ABC figures for 2023 show continued strong performance for convenience store staples like TV listings and women’s interest titles.
Analysis of newsstand sales by Better Retailing showed Good Housekeeping has broken into the top 10 magazines predicted to earn the most for retailers in 2024, ousting Bella after a successful 2023. Good Housekeeping’s retail sales value (RSV) increased by £31,124.04 in 2023, despite not raising prices.
David Robinson, chief customer officer at Hearst UK, told RN: “We’re encouraged by our latest ABC results, with four brands delivering headline growth, and a number increasing UK actively purchased copies.”
The four Hearst titles that achieved growth in copies sold on the newsstand from 2022 to 2023 were Elle UK, Women’s Health, Harper’s Bazaar, and Prima. This is a significant improvement on 2022, when Elle UK and Harper’s Bazaar both saw large drops in sales.
Robinson added: “By continuing to invest in both world-class content and our print editions, five brands grew on the UK newsstand thanks to our readers. At the same time, we increased newsstand retail sales value by 3% in the second half of the year, helping to support our retailer partners.”
Read more: Strong January newspaper sales attributed to Post Office scandal
Good Housekeeping is the only title in the top 15 highest-RSV titles of 2023 not to increase its cover price in the past year. However, in the 15 top-selling titles, three – Good Housekeeping, Slimming World and Vogue – maintained their prices.
Women’s interest titles, particularly women’s lifestyle and women’s weeklies, continued to dominate the highest-growth and highest-RSV categories, along with TV titles.
The top three TV titles – TV Choice, Radio Times and What’s On TV – generated a combined £92.8m in RSV in 2023. This is £2.1m less than the combined RSV of the same titles in 2022.
Several titles that were identified as endangered due to falling copy sales avoided closure, though MoneyWeek, The Week Junior and Yachting World reported fewer than 1,000 single-copy sales. Countryside also sold fewer than 1,000 copies in the past year, with Yachting Monthly, The Week Junior Science + Nature and Motor Boat & Yachting all predicted to join them in 2024.
With Immediate Media Company no longer reporting ABC figures for children’s titles, The Week Junior, The Week Junior Science + Nature and Beano are now the only children’s titles reporting. Beano saw copy sales and RSV both drop by 14% in the past year.
Read more news and advice about the newspaper and magazines category and click here for the latest ABC circulation figures
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