Overview of the Magazine Industry

The vital statistics are; that there are more than 8000 titles published in Britain which can be categorised as follows. Consumer (general and specialist) is sold in newsagents and available online. Business, trade, professional and B2B is for people at work. Customer magazines that organisations use to give to their customers as a form of marketing. Staff magazines to inform staff about their company. Newspaper supplements which come free as a part of the daily or the Sunday paper. Part works is a set number of issues which builds up into an ‘encyclopaedia’ on a specific topic. Academic journals are for university, level discussion of all sorts of arcane topics. Consumer magazines make up the bulk of the titles for sale in newsagents. They may be general titles that aim to entertain and inform (such as Loaded, Elle, Radio Times) or consumer specialists titles aimed at a specific interest or hobby (Car, Total Film, Gardeners’ World).

The biggest consumer magazine publishers by 2008 sales revenue in newsagents are: Bauer Publishing which is 25%, IPC Media which is 20%, BBC is 7.8%, and National magazine company is 7.3%. Today in the UK there are over 3,200 different consumer titles; however in 1980 there were only 1,383. 1.4 billion Magazines are sold each year, whereas it was 2.1 billion in 1970 and 1.2 billion in 1992. 85% of the population reads a magazine.

The top 5 women’s monthly magazines in 2013 are: Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Yours, Woman & Home and Good Housekeeping. The top 5 children’s and Teen magazines in 2013 are: Moshi Monsters Magagine, Fun to Learn – Peppa Pig, Fun to Learn – Friends, CBeebies Art and Top of the pops. Finally the top 4 Men’s lifestyle magazines are Men’s Health, Nuts, FHM and GQ.