Poor sales figures for NatMags

It has not been a happy six months for the National Magazine Company.

Last week’s Audit Bureau Of Circulations figures for July to December 1995 showed that six out of the company’s eight titles lost sales during the period. In all, the company was selling an average 88,225 fewer magazines a month than it was the previous year.

The poor figures only raised the suspicions of other publishing groups that NatMags deliberately held back its circulation figures to minimise their impact.

EMAP, IPC and Condé Nast all took the opportunity to call for a co-ordinated release date for ABC figures to prevent news management, and to allow journalists and press buyers an overview of the total magazine market. The ABC itself is looking to move towards a co-ordinated release date by upgrading its technology.

One competitor even accused NatMags of waiting to see the sales figures of its competitors before finalising its sales estimates for the last issues of the period – the issues which are still on sale at the end of the audit period.

The poor figures follow a period of upheaval for the editorial teams at NatMags – five of the magazines have seen new editors arrive in the seven months since Marcelle d’Argy Smith left Cosmopolitan in July.

Linda Kelsey of She magazine, Francine Lawrence of Country Living and Sally O’Sullivan of Good Housekeeping also left late last year and Company needed a new editor when Mandi Norwood went to replace d’Argy Smith at Cosmo.

Much of the trouble for NatMags’ editors has been attributed to the company’s managing director Terry Mansfield. The company has no editorial director to sit between Mansfield and his editors so there is no one there “paid to take the flak”, as one of them puts it.

However, NatMags always insists on treating its titles as individual brands, and by doing so it is possible to see that its troubles are not all coming from the managing director’s office.

Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire have hovered around 450,000 for the past year and may be discovering that this is the natural upper limit of their sales. Cosmo’s 0.9 per cent fall in July to December was stagnation, not decline.

The home improvement sector had a poor six months at all the big publishers. Good Housekeeping’s fall shows it was not able to ride out the housing slump forever, but remains queen of its sector.

Agency buyers are also happy with the position of Esquire, even with the rest of the men’s market pulling away from it. They want some men’s magazines that are unaffected by Loaded and retain the elitist environment their advertisers desire. So, Esquire will be able to benefit from its more upmarket position as long as its circulation falls no further.

The one title agency buyers do have concerns about is She. It fell by 10.3 per cent year on year and buyers have always felt it has a weak identity and market niche.

While it may not be much comfort to those who have left, one effect of the editor changes at NatMags is that in the face of a sales slump the company can tell advertisers, and its US parent company, that drastic action has been taken to put the titles back on track. NatMags’ best title was Harpers & Queen, which changed editors in 1994 and this time increased sales by 5.6 per cent.