Scantily-dressed women aren't enough to hold an audience anymore, and while readership figures for the year to June were the strongest for some time, male-targeted titles like Zoo Weekly and GQ continued to wane.
Roy Morgan Readership figures for year to June 2012.
While pundits have been crying doom and gloom in the magazine industry for some time, the latest results from Roy Morgan Readership have indicated readership growth for 53 titles, while 79 publications have seen declines.
The result is markedly better than the March figures, where there were 87 declines and 42 increases, and an even larger improvement on the December 2011 results, where 98 titles posted declines and 26 saw an increase.
What's more, the rate of increase for some titles has been phenomenal. Citrus Media's Game Informer saw its readership jump 70.7% to 169,000 readers, a sign of the increasingly strong Computing, Games & Technology category.
Other strong increases were seen by Morrison Media's Frankie, which grew 35.5%, and Dennis Publishing's The Week, which grew 43.1%.
But it certainly wasn't all good news, with the majority of the market still seeing a decline. Custom magazines Virgin Australia Voyeur and Foxtel Magazine saw the largest declines, dropping 42.9% and 38.1% respectively.
Male-targeted publications were some of the hardest hit. The Men's category, including ACP's People and Picture, fell 20.9% overall, while the Men's Lifestyle sector dropped 12.4% and the Sports category declined 21%.
The other category to fall significantly was TV titles, which fell 22.2%.
Stronger categories included Computer, Gaming & Info Tech, which jumped 4%; Music & Movies, which surged 4.9%; Home & Garden, which grew 1.8%; and Women's Fashion, which increased 1.8%.
The most read title remains ACP's Australian Women's Weekly, with 2.4 million readers.
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