Circulation

I have been investigating magazine circulation so that I can choose to make a magazine that will do well within a competitive market and this is what I have found:

Trends in Sales

I have noticed several trends in magazine sales whilst looking at the circulation figures for the start of 2012.

Most noticeable was which magazines are the best sellers. The list starts with Television magazines which you could argue is obvious since most people watch TV and the next best sellers are gossip magazines like 'Take a Break'. This indicates the public's need for gossip and their want to look like the celebrities they aspire towards. The middle of the list consists of more programme specific magazines like 'Top Gear magazine' and life style magazines such as 'Good homes.' The end of the list contains magazines aimed at a more niche audiences such as children's magazines, parenting magazines and area specific magazines.

However, even though TV magazines seem to be the best sellers most of them have lost readers in the past few years. A similar drop can be seen in the circulation of most of the magazines on the list. Very few magazines have increased in circulation and it is mainly the magazines with niche demographics who's circulation hasn't changed.

One of the most likely reasons for the drop in magazine circulation is the global recession that has begun in the past few years. Large amounts of people have been hit by the recession and everyone has had to make cuts. In some cases this will have meant stopping a monthly subscription to a particular magazine seeing a drop in circulation. This theory is supported by the fact that the most widely circulated magazines are ASDA and Tesco's free magazines and 'Eat In' magazine's circulation has increased by 52.7% because people don't have enough money to eat out.


Niche Magazines
From my research I found that a lot of the magazines aimed at niche audiences haven't lost readers or gained readers. The most noticeable examples are children's magazines like 'Moshi Monsters' or 'Octonauts' so I have de-constructed a cover for one of these magazines to see what conventions they use to secure their readers each issue.

• As this is aimed at Children there are a lot of bright colours to draw them in and catch their attention. 
• They clearly advertise free gifts so that children will want to buy the magazine purely for the gift.
• The web adress is clearly visible at the bottom so that the fans can go and investigate the website once they have bought the magazine. 
• The fact they have been on television is clearly advertised at the top of the front cover so children will want to buy it because they have seen them on television. 
• Cartoon moshi monsters are displayed on the front that appeal to both male and female moshi fans by having the right mix of weird and cuddly. 

In the instance of magazines like Moshi monsters magazine they don't particularly gain new readers because of the way they built up their fan base. When the magazine first started out it's gifts were collectable toys and one way of collecting them was by buying the magazine so they established a solid fan base quite quickly. However a niche music magazine such as 'Irish Music' magazine, which specialises in Celtic and Irish music, may choose to build on its current fan base to spread the word about the style of music it is promoting but it may choose not to because it doesn't want to loose the fan base it already has. 

 
For these reasons I think I will choose a genre of magazine that has a niche audience so that I can secure a fan base quickly. This will in turn make it easier for me to engineer my content around my audiences needs.