2004 Annual Report - Magazine Audience

The differences with more specialized news magazines raise another question. While the news magazine category is flat overall, some of these more specialized publications are faring better in keeping readers. An even worse picture is painted, however, for two of the big three news magazines - Time and U.S. News.

Time's circulation has fallen by 13 percent from 1988 to 2002. U.S. News has lost as well, also 13 percent from 1988 to 2003.¹⁰

Newsweek has been the most stable of the three, experiencing a smaller drop of 3 percent in circulation since 1988. This disparity has significantly closed the gap between Newsweek, the historic No. 2, and Time, the long-time genre leader. The gap, 1.4 million in 1988, narrowed to 928,000 in 2001 and may have narrowed even more in 2002.¹¹ Yet financially, this has not helped Newsweek - or hurt Time -- as much as it once might have.

Circulation Among the Big Three News Magazines

1988 - 2002

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Audit Bureau of Circulations, annual audit reports

* Circulation figures are averages for the second quarter annually

The circulation losses have occurred despite the fact that these magazines have changed format and content to try to hold on to readers and to attract the much valued youth demographic. Pictures are larger and stories are often shorter in an attempt to lure the MTV generation and its more visual sensibility. Graphics have also become a larger part of all of the big three.

Circulations of Other News Magazines

1988 - 2002

Design Your Own Chart

Audit Bureau of Circulations, annual audit reports

* The Atlantic is a monthly magazine

At the same time, however, the circulation trends among the smaller, more specialized news magazines are all up, some slightly, some more sharply, and these among publications that have not lightened their fare as much. Again, of particular note are The Economist and The New Yorker.

While there may be some question as to whether The New Yorker publishes a product that is similar in format to a traditional news weekly, the same argument cannot be made about The Economist, which has seen its subscriber base more than double in the past 15 years.¹² And it has done it with a decidedly different approach than the big three..

The circulation numbers are particularly telling, considering the fact that magazines often "buy" circulation. Publications sometimes make their subscription prices so low that many readers simply find them too low to resist. On top of the discounts, publications can do enough promotions, mailings and gift giveaways that they can pretty much control the amount of circulation they will gain and, to some extent, where they will gain it. The idea is to attract readers - and certain kinds of readers - in order to get higher circulation numbers that command higher ad rates. All of the big three magazines employ this technique. Subscription cards in Newsweek, for instance, offer a year of the magazine home-delivered for $42, a savings of $209 or 80 percent off the cover price. The question is whether it is worth the money. That depends in part on whether the new readership is converted into more ad revenue. It also depends on how much a magazine has to spend to maintain its circulation base. How many existing readers is it retaining, versus new readers it has to attract, to hold its overall numbers?

On the other hand, The Economist has had its circulation rise although its subscription prices far outstrip the big three. According to subscription cards, a 51 percent discounted annual subscription rate of The Economist still comes to $129, a bit more than triple the discount card of Newsweek.