Something like 100m more consumer magazines were sold in Britain in 2005 than in the previous year. Yet national and regional newspapers go on losing sales, while people are also spending fewer hours watching television. Why should that be? What is about the magazine market that defies the trend towards computer-based consumption? It's certainly not about money, because magazines are far more expensive than papers. Indeed, magazines have got more expensive, recording a 10% rise in average cover prices over the course of last year. So people are happy to pay.
Look at some more facts and figures. According to the World Advertising Research Center (WARC), a remarkable 1.44bn magazines were sold in Britain. That's a 7.4% year-on-year rise and represents the highest growth in decades, though the upward trend has been clear for five straight years. Much of the growth can be attributed to weekly titles, which now account for 71.5% of all magazine sales, up from 68.2% six years ago. My Guardian colleague, Julia Day, singles out Nuts as one example of the weekly successes.
By odd coincidence - or was it? - Nuts was one of the "lads' mags" that have just featured in the headlines because the Labour MP for Crosby, Claire Curtis-Thomas, has suggested they should be sent to the top shelf because she considers them variously obscene, provocative and shocking. Her particular complaint was treated to a scathing analysis by Catherine Bennett. So I've no need to re-enter that territory. But there's no denying that lads seem to prefer glossy magazines to newsprint. As, quite clearly, do women of all ages.
Does this indicate that magazine publishers are getting it right while newspaper publishers are getting it wrong? I think not. It's an apples-and-pears comparison. The truth is that magazines, by their nature, are niche publications. They can aim at a specific market (and, in the case of lads, arguably create a market). Papers cannot adapt like that. They can launch supplements and sections for niche audiences, but they can't do so with the full-hearted enthusiasm of a magazine editor who can devote the whole product to a single mission.
Note what Phil Cutts, the director of marketing at the Periodical Publishers' Association, said: "The market is continuously evolving to ensure magazines carry on appealing to their target audience." If we overlook the convoluted grammar, it does make sense. It's not the market evolving, of course. It's the producers (aka publishers) aiming at an identifiable target group. Of course, many launches fail. They vanish after a couple of issues. Again, newspapers can't do that. Or, at least, they haven't done so. And niche newspapers haven't had a good track record either, as the unsold copies of The Sportsman and First News indicate. As a friend remarked the other day, newsprint is so 19th century.
