MAGAZINES’ 360 REACH: The Magazine Media 360 Brand Audience Report released by The Association of Magazine Media said Wednesday that the magazine industry has grown its audience 10.1 percent across print, digital, video and Web over the past six months. The new report estimated the total audience at 1.59 billion, and said the growth was helped by an increase in mobile consumption. The report estimated that mobile consumers rose to 18 percent from 11 percent a year earlier. The increase would have been more, but the sizeable audience using print and digital editions shrank to 64 percent from 71 percent.
Although the report does not measure newsstand sales — print and digital editions refer to MRI data that polls audience size and digital-edition downloads via tablet — MagNet recently released its own report that illustrated the continued erosion of magazines at retail. MagNet said newsstand sales in the third and fourth quarters of 2014 sank 19.1 percent and 9 percent, respectively, putting a slight damper on the MPA’s report of renewed industry growth.
The Brand Audience report aims to show the other facets of a magazine’s reach, and for the six months, the biggest magazine brand in terms of audience size was People, with nearly 44 million. Better Homes and Gardens and AARP The Magazine ranked second and third with respective audiences of 39.4 million and 35 million.
For women’s fashion and beauty magazines, the largest audience for the six months was Cosmopolitan (30 million), followed by Glamour (18.3 million), Vogue (15.4 million), Vanity Fair (13.9 million), O, The Oprah Magazine (13.2 million), InStyle (12.6 million), Seventeen (10.7 million), Allure (10.3 million), Elle (9.7 million), Harper’s Bazaar (6.1 million), Marie Claire (6 million), Teen Vogue (5.6 million), Lucky (3.7 million), Town & Country (3.5 million) and W (1.6 million).
Of this universe of glossies, Cosmopolitan had an 18.7 percent share of the total audience, which makes up 160.6 million, according to the Brand Audience report. Glamour and Vogue came in second and third with audience share of 11.4 percent and 9.6 percent, respectively.