Distribution and Fall in Sales Figures

Distribution’s typical sales are through newsstands, vendors, mail order whilst free distribution favours selected pick up locations which have set redistribution patterns at regular intervals.

The three main circulation methods are paid, free and controlled depending on the means of the magazines intent:-

·         Paid: Sold to the reader and relies on that revenue to fund its resources and content.

·         Free: The issues are freely distributed but rely upon advertising revenue to fund the issues.

·         Controlled: Generally a ‘free’ publication distributed to only those who are eligible such as consumer magazines.

Although, in recent years the trend of magazines has declined significantly; the ABC figures show a vast decline in the yearly circulation of NME magazine by 17.6% from 56,000 to 18,000. This appears to be a trending event throughout all magazines with Q magazine fell by 20% respectively. As of 2012, the biggest selling music magazines Mojo’s circulation also fell by 2.4% to 85,000.

This correlation of falling magazine sales and the distribution increase of free title magazines such as Fly to 108,827 copies displays the trend in which magazines are going, relying upon advertising rather than selling to the public.

Title	Publisher	Jun End 2012	Yr / Yr Change
Empire	Bauer Consumer Media	167,096	-2.3%
Total Film	Future Publishing	68,897	-4.1%
Mojo	Bauer Consumer Media	85,149	-2.4%
Q	Bauer Consumer Media	64,596	-19.7%
Uncut	IPC Media	63,003	-4.5%
Kerrang!	Bauer Consumer Media	40,203	-6.6%
New Musical Express	IPC Media	23,924	-17.6%

In relation to regional magazines Time Out magazine has recently advocated to a free title instead of paid after being established for more than 40 years. ABC figures in 2009 show Time Out’s circulation figures from 44.6% to 61,397 in the 2^nd half of the year; a trend which was further exploited by the annual year by year drops of 20.7% of annual readership and subscribers.  In Time Out’s first monthly debut as a free title the publication reached its 3month target in the first 4 weeks of 305,000 copies. This represents clearly the powerful effect which free distribution has on the climate and on the method of publication emerging as the most prominent in the industry, especially when compared with its distribution peak as a paid for title of only 50,000 annually.