Britons keep buying magazines despite recession

Britons kept buying magazines to cheer themselves up despite the recession, according to figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation today.

75.3 million titles were sold in the second half of 2009 — exactly the same number as a year earlier — unlike in America where sales fell 2.2%.

Women's fashion and lifestyle monthlies did well as a sector, up 4.7% on a year ago. Women's weeklies rose 2.9%.

Hachette Filipacchi's Red and Harper's Bazaar from National Magazine Company both announced record circulation.

But men's lifestyle magazines continued a long-term trend, down 4.4%. Bauer's Zoo slumped 30%, stablemate FHM tumbled 15% and IPC's Nuts dropped 24%. Even upmarket GQ fell 7.7%.

Technology, Hollywood glamour and satire proved popular. The new British edition of technology mag Wired showed there is demand for a print title from a digital audience as it posted a debut of 48,000.

Vanity Fair posted record-breaking circulation of 102,000, up 1.2%. Private Eye's sales rose 3.4% to 210,000 — its highest level since the last recession in 1992 — and The Oldie shot up 14% to 36,000.

But The Spectator suffered an 8.9% annual drop to 70,000.

Some magazines enjoyed big increases thanks to "multi-bagging", a strategy where publishers sell several titles together but are allowed to count each one individually for circulation purposes.

Richard Desmond's celebrity title Star saw the biggest rise, up 84% on the previous year, to 492,000 partly thanks to selling discounted copies.

Britain's best-selling magazine remains TV Choice with a circulation of 1.3 million.

Kevin Hand, chairman of Hachette Filipacchi UK, said the recession showed that "high quality titles that are markedly different to the competition continue to deliver attractive audiences for advertisers and profitable businesses for publishers".

Arnaud de Puyfontaine, chief executive of the NatMags, added: "The market is beginning to recover."