Private Eye and Economist enjoy rises as news magazines buck trends
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Version 0 of 1. News and current affairs magazines have bucked downward trends across the rest of the magazine market over the last six months, with many showing growing combined digital and print circulations. Figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) showed year-on-year growth for combined print and online editions of the two largest players: Private Eye and the Economist in the UK, which increased circulations by 4.6% and 1.9% year on year and 4% and 1.8% period on period, respectively. The Investor’s Chronicle and Prospect magazine were also among those to show increases in combined print and online circulations. Strong digital performances underpinned the growth, with all of the digital editions increasing circulation year on year. The Economist in the UK recorded the largest rise in online circulation, with a jump of 225.8% between January and June this year when compared with the same period in 2014. The increase to 70,953 readers also represented a rise of 42% on the second half of last year. The magazine’s Asia-Pacific, continental Europe and Middle East-African online editions all show increases between 52.1%% and 77.5% on the first six months of last year. The digital version of the Week – which aggregates news from other titles – also did well, growing by 17%. There were fewer success stories in print, where many magazines – including the Economist in all territories and the Spectator in Australia – saw declining circulations. However, Private Eye grew by 4%, while the the Spectator outside of Australia and the Week also saw modest increases on the first half of 2014 of 1.6% and 1.4%, respectively. While it actually recorded a fall, the Economist’s continental Europe edition had the highest combined print and online circulation overall, with 243,640 copies. That was followed by Private Eye, which recorded 228,264 sales. Across all territories, the Economist’s combined print and online circulation figure was 652,9778. |