INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

B&T Weekly Australia – Men's mags in circulation meltdown

The Australian men's magazine market has taken one of the worst batterings the sector has ever experienced in new circulation figures released today.

Titles such as FHM, Ralph and Alpha all dropped substantially, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulation results. FHM, published by ACP, lost 28.4% of its circulation compared to the same time last year, leaving it with a circulation of just 58,307. ACP's Ralph and News Magazines' Alpha lost 26.5% and 15.9% respectively.

"I think what we are seeing in the circulation numbers for men's magazines is the same as what we saw happen in the UK," Simon Davies, OMD head of print, said.

"I think we will continue to see a decline in sales."

The figures also appear to herald the end of Zoo Weekly's dramatic growth. After two years of rising circulations under previous owner Emap, its latest figures fell back fractionally to 116,136.

"Although Zoo was a successful launch, it has not grown the market, it has instead cannibalised the market," said Davies.

Dymphna James, group business director of MediaCom's prestige business unit, agreed that Zoo, now owned by ACP, said: “It appears that this category is really responding to the weekly offering that Zoo has.”

FHM underwent a revamp in March this year, following previous poor circulation results. But given the results, FHM might not have done it soon enough, said Allen.

Phil Scott, ACP's group publisher for men's and specialist titles, emphasised that the latest audit figures only include two issues of the reformatted FHM.

"We could see this situation coming when we re-positioned FHM. It will take some time to see the results come through. We expect to see some changes by December this year," he said. Scott declined to talk in detail about ACP's other men's titles but said it was a category issue. Within the sector, Pacific Magazines' Men's Health was one of the few bright spots, recording a rise of 10.3% to 75,000.

The weekly women's and celebrity markets also suffered in the latest audit results. ACP titles Woman's Day, NW and OK! plus Pacific Magazines offerings New Idea, Famous and Who all underwent declines, with the worst hit NW, down 11.9%.

Deteriorating economic conditions were held up as the culprit.

Mediacom’s James said the weekly market has been "lethargic" and was looking for something new, when Grazia "answered that call". Grazia launched last month as a joint venture between ACP and Hearst, and no audited circulation figures are yet available. However, James did not hold as much hope for News Magazines' new fashion monthly Glamour when it appears early next year. “Girls are spending less and less time with a magazine like Cosmopolitan or Cleo. They are growing up a lot quicker," she said.

But Sandra Hook, CEO of News Magazines, told B&T: "When we were researching Glamour, we found a lot of women dissatisfied with the offerings, which they said were not helping to make them feel good."

Cosmopolitan, published by ACP, dropped by 18.7% to 165,301. And stablemate Cleo fell by 12.3% to 149,256.

A number of magazines disappeared from this year's audit figures, including the Wolseley Media-owned titles Inside Sport and Golf Australia. Last time round Inside Sport lost 52.74% of its circulation, falling to 23,873 copies, while Golf Australia lost 15.6%. Wolseley Media did not return calls.