2005 Annual Report - Magazine Audience

The numbers for the Big Three news weeklies over all dipped slightly again in 2003 (the latest numbers available), continuing the downward path the magazines have been on for decades. In contrast, the circulation figures of some of the non-traditional news magazines continue to rise. Those increases raise further questions about whether the news genre is undergoing a slow remaking.

The success of the non-traditional format of the boutique news magazines can be measured in several ways, but the most telling may be the most rudimentary - growing circulation. While many print media outlets decry declining reading habits and find themselves facing shrinking subscriptions, two of the four nontraditional news weeklies whose data is readily available, The New Yorker and The Economist, continued to see increases in the 2003 data.¹

Along with the three main news weeklies, we look at four nontraditional news magazines that report with the Audit Bureau of Circulations - The New Yorker, The Economist, The Atlantic and Jet. In this group, The New Yorker witnessed a 2% bump up in 2003, while The Economist saw a more substantial rise of 6%.² Also noteworthy in the New Yorker figures were indications that the magazine that has historically treated New York City as one of its primary characters is seeing its circulation broaden geographically. Publisher's Statements show that for the first time there were higher circulation figures in California than in New York - 167,000 to 166,000.³ While that might not be completely surprising, considering the size of the population of California, it is significant considering the magazine's roots, its focus and the fact that New York is the home of the magazine publishing industry.

Not all the numbers are positive among the nontraditional books. Both The Atlantic and Jet saw fairly substantial declines in 2003, in the range of 30,000.⁴ For Jet, targeted at African Americans, the 3% decline in 2003 continues a trend that began in 2000. In fact since 1999, the magazine's circulation is down by about 90,000, or about 10%. The loss of circulation could be due to reader discontent, or it might be tied to the decline in African American incomes in the U.S. The Economic Policy Institute reports that the real median income of African American households is off by about 6% since 2000.⁵ When household budgets get tight, magazine subscriptions are often among the first things to be cut. The 6% drop in 2003 circulation at the Atlantic, though, comes after an increase in 2002. In fact, after years of stability, the past four years have seen the circulation at the monthly go up and down yo-yo style, though hovering around the 500,000 mark.⁶ Rising by roughly 60,000 between 1999 and 2000, then dropping by 34,000 in 2001, then up again by 37,000 in 2002 before this latest drop. The first rise coincides with David Bradley's purchase of the magazine in 1999 and might be explained in part by buzz it received from a change in ownership. But the drop and the subsequent increase are harder to explain. Regardless, considering the moves by Bradley to double subscription rates and drop circulation, the bobbing up and down may be finished. We will watch this number closely in years to come to see if this circulation drop is limited.

Circulation of Non-Traditional News Magazines

1988 - 2003

Design Your Own Chart

Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations, annual audit reports

At the traditional news weeklies, changes in content have coincided with dropping subscriber numbers - a combined 1 million in circulation lost for the three magazines over the last 16 years. The latest figures, for 2003, show those declines continuing for Time and Newsweek while U.S. News and World Report actually had a very small increase, of 2,000.⁷ Only time will tell whether that increase is a one-year blip or something more substantial. As was true a year ago, the magazines essentially now sit about a million apart from one another in circulation. As of the end of 2003, Time had about 4.1 million, Newsweek 3.1 million and U.S. News 2 million.

Circulation Among the Big Three News Magazines

1988 - 2003

Design Your Own Chart

Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations, annual audit reports

*Newsweek audit figures unavailable, figures from Publisher's Statement.

Along with those general circulation trends, newsstand sales continued to fall into 2004. Time was off by about 4% in the first half of 2004 compared to 2003, Newsweek slipped by about 7% over the same period and U.S. News saw a 4% newsstand decline.⁸ Those numbers mirrored industry-wide declines. The weeklies experienced a large bump in newsstand circulation in the weeks and months after September 11, 2001, when it seemed Americans were again interested in news, but the effect was short-lived. When year-end 2004 numbers become available it will be interesting to see whether the presidential election and the events in Iraq drove the newsstand numbers up again. These declines, combined with the growth of the boutique magazines, may be pushing new players into the news magazine market. Though still really getting off the ground, The Week, a magazine launched by Maxim's Dennis Publishing in 2001 that prides itself on summarizing the entire week's news in a succinct 40 pages, is surviving and claims a readership of 200,000, though the Audit Bureau put the figure at 178,000 for 2003.⁹