Weekly magazines aimed at women continued to see sharp declines in sales in the first half of the year with Richard Desmond’s OK! the biggest loser.
Total sales across the women’s weekly sector fell to 4.2m, down 11% compared with the previous six months, according to the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
OK! lost almost a third of combined print and digital sales over the period to fall to just 15 copies above the 200,000 mark. The next biggest fall among the top women’s titles was Star magazine, also owned by Desmond’s Northern & Shell, which saw combined circulation fall by 22.4% to 148,390.
Desmond’s titles have been hit especially hard in recent years, but celebrity focused magazines across the board are suffering as they face growing competition online from sites such as Mail Online.
The Bauer-owned celebrity magazines Heat and Closer both saw big falls, with the former down almost 10% to 185,355 and the latter falling 5% to 283,608. However, the company said in a statement the two titles had produced “market-beating performances” and managed to “grow share in the celebrity market”.
Bauer’s Take a Break remains the best seller in the women’s weekly category, with combined circulation of 608,743, down 5.8% on the previous six months.
However, Time Inc UK had two of the most resilient titles with Woman’s Weekly, which saw a year-on-year fall of 3.4% to 296,793, and Woman, which slipped by 2.1% to 247,403.
Woman’s Weekly focuses more on lifestyle tips, recipes and guides on topics such as knitting, rather than celebrity news.
