·Circulation
Approximately 14,000 different periodicals of all types are published in the United States.More than 2,000 of these can be considered consumer magazinesA precise definition of“consumer magazine”is,of course,somewhat elusive.For the purposes of this study,a periodical must meet the following tests to be considered:It must be listed in the SRDS Consumer Magazine Directory(and therefore must carry advertising),and it must be published with a frequency of four times a year or more.See also Marian Confer,The Magazine Handbook(New York:Magazine Publishers of America,1990),p.5;and the section on Methodology.,and these represent an estimated total circulation of more than 585 million readers.The total readership of 585 million has been calculated by multiplying the circulation total in the study sample(see“Sum”note,Figure 1)by the“nth”value(n=7)in the sampling sort:83.4 million x 7=585 million.It should be noted that this calculation is a somewhat indirectly derived extrapolation,and hence caution is recommended when comparing the 2000 figure of 585 million with the 1990 total of 706.79 million.See also the section on Methodology.In terms of individual circulations,consumer magazines range in size from Parade(at 37 million,the largest circulation periodical but,as a Sunday newspaper supplement,sometimes not included in a consideration of conventional magazines)and Modern Maturity,the American Association of Retired Person's Monthly(at 20 million),to small specialized publications with only a few hundred readers.
Interestingly,the mean circulation of all American consumer magazines has fallen from 442,851 in 1990 to 278,105 in 2000.Equally fascinating,however,is that due to continuing success of a large number of magazines with quite small readerships,the median circulation of U.S.consumer magazines,at 86,000 readers,did not change at all.
·Frequency and Cover Price
Today,35 percent of all consumer magazines are published monthly and nearly 25 percent are published bimonthly,with a median cover price of$3.50.This represents a number of changes over the study decade.For example,almost 40 percent of all consumer magazines in 1990 were published monthly,and the median cover price,at$2.50,was$1 less than today.Moreover,there has been a significant increase in the percentage of bimonthly publications,from 18.9 to 24.7 percent.
Also of note is the fact that,while free distribution(or“controlled”circulation)has long been the norm in the specialized business or“trade”magazine publishing,it has become more widely adopted in the consumer publications as well:Over the study decade the percentage of magazines using controlled circulation more than doubled,rising from 8.3 to 17.9 percent.
·Advertising Rates
The price charged for advertising is a function of both the size of the individual medium's audience and the attractiveness of that audience to advertisers.The median page rate for a black-and-white advertisement in consumer magazines in 2000 was$3,740,up from just under$2,600 in 1990.
However,the price of advertising is perhaps more usefully expressed in terms of cost per thousand(cpm)readers or viewers.For magazines,the cost is that of a full-page black-and-white advertisement per thousand readers;for television,cost of a 30-second commercial per thousand viewers.For comparison,network television's cpm is typically between$6 and$12,a figure that,not coincidentally,is also the cpm of TV Guide.Large general-interest magazines such as Reader's Digest and Ladies Home Journal have cpm's in the$20 range,and the newsweeklies such as Time and Newsweek cluster around$30.The more specialized the audience is,the more a magazine can charge.As a result,magazines serving special reader interests often have cpms two or three times that of the newsmagazines.For example,Popular Photography has a cpm of about$65.
The industry's median cpm rose from$32 in 1990 to$42 in 2000,an increase of more than 30 percent.In addition,other changes in the cpm and page-rate histograms of 1990 and 2000 are notable:In 2000,a stronger peak emerges in the page-rate data between prices of$27,000 and$57,000,supporting a claim to an increased specialization of magazines.
Comparative Results and Discussion
·Circulation
Gender was initially presumed to be a strong factor to explain the change in circulation over the past ten years.Indeed,almost 80 percent of all consumer magazines are now gender-specific(see Endnote,p140).During the decade,the percentage of female magazines remained roughly constant,but male magazines rose from 41.7 to 50.0 percent of readers,and joint magazines lost more than 10 percentage points.Viewed as a whole,50 percent of all magazine are aimed at male readers,just under 30 percent are women's magazines,and the balance have joint readerships.Furthermore,the median circulation of magazines for men is 84,500(up from 78,000 in 1990),while the median readership of women's publications fell from 105,500 in 1990 to 95,000 in 2000.
