Overview of Magazine Industry

There are more than 8000 magazine titles that are published in Britain. They can be categorised into 7 different divisions:

1.    Consumer General and Specialist- sold in newsagents and available online

2.    Business/ Trade/ Professional/ B2B- for people at work

3.    Customer magazines- organisations give to their customers as a form of marketing

4.    Staff magazines- inform staff about the company

5.    Newspaper supplements- come free as part of a daily/Sunday paper

6.    Part works- a set number of issues builds up into an ‘encyclopaedia’ on a specific topic

7.    Academic journals- for university: level discussion of topics

Out of all of these categories, consumer magazines sell the most in newsagents around the UK. Consumer General magazines are wide-ranging titles that aim to entertain and inform the reader. Examples of these magazines are ELLE, RADIO TIMES and HEAT. Consumer Specialist titles are focussed a specific interest of hobby. Therefore the reader would buy the magazine, to find out more about one particular interest of theirs. Such as CAR, TOTAL FILM and GARDENERS’ WORLD.

There are four big consumer magazine publishers: Bauer Publishing, IPC Media, BBC and National Magazine Company. The leading publisher is Bauer Publishers with 25% sales. Close behind is IPC Media with 20%. The least sales publisher is National Magazine Company with 7.3%.

In the UK today, there are 3,300 different consumer titles, compared with 1,383 in 1980. There are 1.4 billion magazines sold each year, compared with 2.1 billion sold in 1970, and 1.2 billion in 1992. This shows that that the sales of magazines decreased between years 1970 and 1992, but is slowly increasing to the present time. 85% of the population read a magazine, and advertisers spent 745 million, on advertising in magazines in 2008. On average, consumers annually spend 2 billion on magazines, and an average of 500 new magazines have been launched every year in the past decade. However, only three in ten titles last for longer than four years.

Out of all the magazine brands, there are five most popular women’s monthly magazines. They are Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Yours, Women & Home and Good Housekeeping. These are all stereotypical female magazines, which feature aspects of gossip, fashion and the home. All of which are dominant representation of what women want to read about. Likewise, there are the top five children’s and teen magazines. They are Moshi monsters magazine, Fun to learn- Peppa Pig, Fun to learn-Friends, CBeebies Art and Top of the Pops. These all appeal to the younger audience, as some help with learning and cartoon pictures, however the magazine that appeals to the teenage market, features celebrity gossip, ‘boyfriend troubles’ and fashion tips. These are all things that teenage girls would want to find out more about. Along with this, there are four top men’s lifestyle magazines: Men’s health, Nuts, FHM and GQ. The magazines such as Men’s health don’t include gossip and fashion (which women are more interested in), however, they are more informative and suit the male target audience.