At least one Irish magazine publisher awaiting the arrival of the new round of audited circulation figures can take encouragement from the UK's ABCs which were released this week. Mr Kevin Kelly, the publisher of the Irish men's magazine Himself, will be particularly pleased.
In general the UK figures showed a decline in most sectors which in the case of women's weeklies is being blamed largely on market saturation. However two sectors showed spectacular rises, namely men's monthlies and computer titles. In the men's section, Maxim rose by 29.2 per cent; Men's Health by 25.9 per cent and FHM by 16.7 per cent. Mr Kelly must be hoping that some of that magic will rub off on his now monthly Irish title as the magazine's new editor is Mr Frances Cottam who edited FHM and introduced Men's Health. As for computers, the four PlayStation magazines dominate the fastest growing 20.
The figures are bad news for traditional women's weeklies, all of which continue to decline as against modest rises in the glossy end of the market. The top women's monthly Cosmopolitan is up 3.3 per cent with its nearest rival Marie Claire up 7.2 per cent. Surprisingly give the controversy they cause, teen magazines such as Smash Hits, Sugar and Big! all lost circulation. The figures show that the battle between the celeb spotting weeklies continues with the challenger OK! gaining ground all the time, with a massive 76.9 per cent increase to 400,701. Hello! is down 11.1 per cent but still has a circulation of 510,552.
