The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) has released circulation figures for the second quarter of 2010 (April to June) and the stats makes for some interesting reading and serves as an indicator of the health of specific consumer publications.FinWeek and the Financial Mail meanwhile continue to battle it out for top circulation spot in the weekly business segment. FinWeek has a higher paid-for circulation (25 562) than FM (24 139) and pushes more free bulk circulation than its rival thus, ensuring top spot with a circulation of 28 358 (down from 31 817) to FMs 26 224 (also down from 27 253).
Cleo, Cosmo, Elle, Fair Lady, Glamour, Marie Claire and a number of other female interest titles all saw drops in circulation. Cosmo shed nearly 10% of its circulation. Move! dropped by nearly 12%. O - The Oprah magazine brought more bad news for Associated Magazines with a decline of 17%. Ideas/Idees and Essentials both managed slight gains, as did Your Family and Soul. Woman and Home saw a respectable increase of nearly 5.4%.
Among the Afrikaans giants, Rooi Rose gained ground, upping circulation to 118 395 (from 107 568) while Sarie fell from 139 031 to 132 646. Finesse declined to under 90 000 while Leef experienced a mini aneurysm with a decline of nearly 20%.
In the home category, Elle Decoration experienced a serious drop to under 20 000 copies. House & Leisure fell by nearly 13%, SA Home & Garden fell by 11.6% and SA Garden/Tuin Paleis fell by nearly 20%.
Food & Home Entertainment, meanwhile, showed positive growth, as did Top Billing.
On the newspaper front nearly all the dailies lost circulation. The Cape Argus, recently rocked by the brown envelope scandal, declined steeply from 60 394 to 52 304. The Daily Sun dropped from 501 734 to 433 224, or by more than 13%. The Star declined from 162 935 to 154 092.
The Citizen broke the sector's losing streak and increased its circulation from 64 685 to 71 757. Son, Isolezwe and Volksblad all saw small improvements.
On the weekend front, the relaunch of City Press in May this year couldn't save it of a drop of 9.5%. Rapport fell by nearly 10% while the Sunday Times declined by more than 8% to 462 372 from just over the half million mark.
Isolezwe ngeSonto showed everybody that the vernacular is growing, with an increase of more than 22% to 67 483. Tabloid Sondag grew from 34 146 to 47 124 and Sondag Son came in at 64 290 with its first ABC results. The Sunday Independent grew to 40 041.
Ilanga also showed growth, climbing from 98 224 to 102 995. The Mail & Guardian declined from 51 166 to 45 745 and UmAfrika fell from 27 819 to 19 576. biz-community.com
