A near-300% surge in sales of the Economist’s digital edition have helped the title offset falls in print to retain its position above Private Eye as the premier news magazine in the UK and Ireland.
The Economist’s UK print edition had an average weekly circulation of 173,939 in the second half of 2014, a fall of 16.6% on the previous year, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures, published on Thursday.
But average sales of the weekly’s digital offering rose by 295% to 49,976, giving a combined average weekly circulation of 223,915. In January the Economist appointed its first female editor, Zanny Minton Beddoes, who replaced the Bloomberg-bound John Micklethwaite.
The satirical magazine Private Eye, in second place overall, remains the sector’s premier print publication with an average fortnightly circulation of 219,465 – a 2.1% drop on last year.
It is followed up in third place by Dennis Publishing’s the Week, which had an average UK circulation of 190,202, a small rise of 0.9% on the same figure last year.
Only 76% of the Economist’s print circulation was paid for, its headline figure including 41,525 “bulk” copies, given away for free at airports and hotels. But this represents a six percentage-point improvement on the first six months of the year, when 30% of the figure was made up of giveaways.
BBC History magazine’s readership grew by 3.1% to 92,755, aided by 15,122 digital subscribers. Both the Spectator and the Oldie grew sales, with the former rising by 1% on 2014 to an average of 54,787 copies, while the latter perhaps benefiting from a demographic shift to 45,571 average weekly sales – a rise of 2.3%.
The general trend in the rest of the sector was of slight falls in print buoyed by gains in web and tablet editions. Time magazine’s combined UK sales were down 1.6% to 127,984, including 5,356 digital copies.
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