SOCIETY TODAY
Press
Losing sales in a 'growth' market
Robert Ashley
You may remember that last week I was going on about the forthcoming death of Nova. On reflection I realise I ought to have been more general. In other words, instead of talking about one specific paper I should have been talking about the whole gaggle of women's magazines. Because they are in a sorry plight. At least most of them are, if circulation figures for the IPC group are anything to go by. In fact they are so awful they make me feel I want somebody to hold my hand.
IPC have twenty-two women's journals — I can't think why — and with one exception, they're all doing so badly that if I were in charge I should take to the bottle immediately. The exception is a magazine with the somewhat unappetising title of Sewing and Knitting with How To. No, don't bother reading that again. I haven't missed anything out. That really is its name. Which only goes to show that Shakespeare was right when he wrote "That which we call Sewing and Knitting with How To by any other name would be a damn sight easier to ask for over the newsagent's counter, but that doesn't prove it would sell any more." Or if he didn't actually say that it is only because in his day Fleet Street wasn't in such a mess, Although I have never ever seen the journal in question let alone read it, I am glad to tell you that in the six months ending June 30, it put on 20,000 per issue compared with the six months ending December 31. And the fact that it is also slightly up on the figures for January-June last year makes it the only one in the IPC stable to increase its circulation in each of the last two successive six month periods.
Now let's look at some of the others. For example, Fabulous 208. (Look, for the last time, I'm not joking. That is its title, so stop giggling at the back and pay attention, will you?) As I was saying, Fabulous 208 has lost 60,000 compared with the same period last year, and as it is only selling some 166,000 at the moment, that's quite a percentage drop. Homemaker has lost 35,000 compared with last year, which must have something to do with a lot of liberated ladies deciding to hell with being the little woman sitting there quietly making a home for the man in their life. Three magazines — Mirabelle, Mother and Hi with Petticoat (you at the back had better watch it) have all put on circulation compared with the back half of last year, but are down compared with the first six months of last year.
When you come to the IPC Big Five, then the figures really do start hurting. The Big Five, in case you don't subscribe to them, are Woman, Woman's Own, Woman's Realm, Woman's Weekly and Woman and Home, and their losses just make me wince. Compared with last year they are down 220,000, 130,000, 113,000,93,000, and 77,000 respectively. There is therefore no wonder that, in an attempt to boost sales of the Big Four (which excludes Woman and Home), IPC have now comp up with a Green Shield starrip scheme. The way the scheme will work is this: the cover of each of the four magazines will carry a coupon. When you have collected twentytwo such coupons, each coupon becomes worth fifteen stamps. If you send in a minimum of forty-four coupons you are automatically entered in a freeentry competition which has ten prizes of one million Green Shield stamps, which you presumably spend immediately on buying a house to keep the damn things in.
The scheme is going to cost IPC Magazines over £11/4 million. It might seem to you and me like the last act of a group of despairing men. Not at all. You're not thinking positively enough. Listen to the glittering words of L. V. Barnet, director of publicity and promotions, as quoted in the UK Press Gazette: "This is an expression of the company's faith and confidence in their future. Equally important, it is an expression of our determination to demonstrate forcibly and in ways which nobody will be able to miss, that there is enormous activity and growth in the women's weeklies market." Brave words, Barney, but I feel strangely unconvinced.
Let's look at the situation objectively, shall we? (I know that means I'm just going to air my own particular prejudices, but we've got to start somewhere, haven't we?) Firstly, why on earth do IPC want twenty-two separate magazines? They didn't plan to have that number. The whole growth of the IPC Magazine division is a story of stumbling along, looking from time to time, with considerable surprise, at what you seem to have accidentally acquired. If you doubt that, read Hugh Cudlipp's and Cecil King's memoirs. They were always buying something they wanted and finding they also had to take, as part of the bargain, something (sometimes a lot of somethings) that they didn't want. In times like these I doubt whether there's a market for twenty-two magazines (twenty-one after October, when Nova goes under). More and more people are looking at their newspaper bills, and the increasing cover prices, and deciding they can certainly do without X and/or Y. So some of those IPC magazines will have to go. I don't welcome this: it means fellow journalists will be out of work, and printers will start feeling the pinch. But go they must and will.
Secondly, I'm not sure that trying to boost the circulations of the Big Four, against the tide, is a very profitable exercise. Circulation as such is nowt a pound, as they say in Lancashire. It may very well be better to go for a smaller circulation, but with profitability, than to go blindly trying to get back to a figure you reached some years ago, when circumstances were quite different. I know that this is certainly the thinking of the Newspaper section of the Mirror Group. Perhaps its time they Atarted pondering it in the Magazine section. Because, although I cannot prophesy when, or if, the turnround will come, I can say something. And since it is women's magazines we're talking about today, I'd better put it in the words of the midwife to the expectant mother: it's going to get worse before it gets better.
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