Consumer ABCs: January-June 2016: Women’s Weeklies

Signalling a tough period for the women’s weekly market, all titles recorded combined print and digital declines between January and June 2016 – with just one seeing a small uplift over the year.

In stark contrast to last period’s data when it celebrated the biggest increase, OK magazine saw its print and digital audience slide by -36%.

The huge audience decrease not only lost the Northern & Shell-owned title its third place position (down to 10th) but also meant that it was the worst performing title in its market by a long shot.

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Northern & Shell’s Star (-15.4% PoP) and New (-12.2% PoP) also performed badly; with New losing its position in the rankings to That’s Life.

Elsewhere, the bigger declines came from Time Inc’s Now (-13.6% PoP) and Hearst UK’s Best (-13.4% PoP).

My Weekly recorded the smallest decline over the period, down -2.9%, while the rest of the less severe declines came from the titles with the biggest combined print and digital audiences – with OK’s poor performance resulting in a slight reshuffle up top.

A -3.2% PoP decline – one of the smallest across the entire market – meant that Woman’s Weekly maintained its position as the second best performing weekly title, behind firm favourite Take A Break.

Woman also performed well in comparison to the rest of the market, down by -3.3% PoP.

In terms of yearly performance, Bauer’s Heat was hardest hit, down -22.3%, followed closely by Now, down -21.8%.

Take A Break Series was the only title to see an increase in its print and digital audience, up 4.2% year on year.