SYDNEY: OK! and Zoo Weekly were the only two weekly magazines of 14 to increase paid circulation figures in the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations survey released today (16 May), as the rest of the category took a dive.
ABC chairman Dr Stephen Hollings took the unusual step of issuing a notice cautioning the market to take into account the effect of an early Easter (which normally falls in second-quarter reporting) on net paid sales. Fusion Strategy estimated the early Easter may have accounted for a drop of up to 2% in circulations, but concluded that weekly titles continue their downward trend regardless.
Fusion also noted that the overall weekly category decline of 8.03% far outstripped the estimated 2.19% drop accounted for by the demise of ACP weekly The Bulletin, which closed in January this year.
ACP had a hand in both success stories, with OK! (its joint venture with Northern & Shell Pacific) posting yet another impressive increase of 13.37% to 142,473 net paid sales per week, and Zoo Weekly increasing its net paid sales by 8.53% to a total of 120,000 copies per week.
The biggest losses, which were also likely compounded by the early Easter, were Famous (Pacific) down 13.75% or 11,000 sales to a total of 70,000; People (ACP), which dropped 9.53%; TV Week (ACP), which decreased by 9.11%; NW (ACP) with a loss of 7.88% and Woman’s Day (ACP), down 7.13%.
For more on the ABC results, see next fortnight's issue of AdNews magazine, on sale 30 May.
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