‘There’s a lot of good news for magazines,’ says PHD Canada’s Rob Young of the PMB 2005 study released yesterday. ‘If I were Rogers or Transcontinental, I’d be saying ‘yippee!”
PMB released readership data on a record number of 102 magazines. This includes more first-timers than ever before with eight English and five French pubs participating. The new books included Canadian Home & Country, Cottage Life, Fashion18, Inside Entertainment, Ottawa City, Sports Illustrated, TORO, Where Canada, Cote Jardins, En Primeur, Le Devoir, Recevoir and Styles de Vie
Larry Thomas, publisher of Reader’s Digest and current PMB chairman, said in a statement: ‘I think the entry of so many new titles into PMB speaks to the current health of the Canadian magazine industry, coming as it does on the heels of other information we’ve seen about the record number of 124 magazine start-ups in 2004 and the record low of 27 closures.’
Says Young: ‘Some of the new magazines got significant numbers with Sports Illustrated and Canadian Home & Country getting readership in the two million range. These are big numbers for new publications working with a small population base.’
Readers-per-copy have remained constant since last year with PMB 2004 showing 5.48 and this year’s study 5.40. The average number of readers was also constant at 1.3 million.
The five-year trend in readers-per-copy since the inception of PMB’s Recent Reading methodology in 2001 also shows virtually no change:
PMB 2001, 5.3
PMB 2002, 5.1
PMB 2003, 5.1
PMB 2004, 5.5
PMB 2005, 5.4
This year’s study includes new information on the sexual orientation of respondents. This is the first full two-year sample information and it shows that 2.0% of the over-18 Canadian population identify as being in a same-sex relationship or would choose to be in that type of relationship. The study also contains data for the first time on Canadians’ usage of cosmetic facial treatments, their usage of diet control systems and on medical conditions.
Two of the big winners this year are the Globe and Mail and the Report on Business Magazine. ROB has been the number-one business magazine for two consecutive years and has an average readership of 1,463,000, including reaching almost 60% of the C-suite.
The Globe‘s average weekday readership is 1,307,000. Average Saturday readership is 1,265,000 and the six-day cume is 2,692,000. The paper has a 46% lead weekdays and a 69% lead Saturdays in the national market, according to the study.
