Just as specialty channels are stealing audience share from traditional television networks, so vertical-interest magazines are gaining ground on more general-interest
titles, a recent study by PMB Print Measurement Bureau appears to confirm.
Steve Ferley, president of the magazine readership research body, says while PMB 2000 shows a slight rise in overall readership, it has come almost exclusively in the area of specialty titles at the expense of some old stalwarts.
Some of the titles down this year include women’s magazines Canadian Living, Chatelaine, Homemakers and Flare; general interest publications Maclean’s, Reader’s Digest, Time and Toronto Life; and business books Report on Business Magazine, National Post Business (formerly Financial Post Magazine) and Profit. Readership of Canadian Business remained static.
Chris Herlihey, research manager with Toronto-based Initiative Media, says the results of PMB 2000 aren’t that much different from last year’s study.
‘Over the past few years, we’ve been seeing an overall decline in readership, especially on some of the women’s books and business books. There are exceptions, but that’s the general trend.
‘The interesting thing is that there are more vertical books coming into the market and their readership is growing. Canadian Home Workshop, Food & Drink, Canadian House & Home – they’re all up.’
Herlihey attributes the decline in general-interest readership to the fact that consumers are pressed for time and, as with television, are zeroing in on their specific interests.
And while he agrees that many of the big titles are down, he says he’s not so sure the numbers are statistically significant.
He says there are other market factors not necessarily reflected in the PMB study, such as increasing competition from U.S. magazines, as well as the wide range of publications available that PMB doesn’t measure.
‘It appears that overall magazine readership is shrinking, and maybe on a title-by-title basis it is, but the overall readership of magazines may not be,’ says Herlihey.
Greg Ramsay, research director for Toronto Life, says while it’s true readership of his magazine has been on the way down for the past few years, that’s been the case for most of the magazine’s major competitors. When that happens, he says, it doesn’t change the competitive landscape too much.
He points out that during this time, circulation numbers have remained constant, so it’s not clear whether there is a decline in general-interest readership or whether there’s a problem with PMB’s current methodology.
‘I don’t know how much weight anyone is putting on PMB 2000 results right now.
‘Everybody is really looking forward to the switch to ‘recent reading’ [survey methodology] in 2001. We’re all expecting to see higher numbers.’
Canada is the only country still using the ‘through-the-book’ methodology where respondents are shown a skeletonized version of each magazine, asked to flip through it, and then asked whether they have read that particular issue.
Critics of the methodology say the greater the number of publications included, the greater the danger respondents will skip magazines placed before them just to get to the end of the interview.
With recent reading methodology, respondents are simply shown the magazine’s logo and asked whether they’ve read an issue during a certain time period.
