Women’s magazines predict slow growth

The women’s monthly magazine market is expecting sluggish growth in its circulation figures in the six months to June 2005.

Condé Nast and the National Magazine Company are likely to show a marginal increase in their year-on-year figures for Glamour and Cosmopolitan, respectively. However, Glamour is expected to show a slight drop – its first – in its period-on-period figures, suggesting it has entered a settling down phase.

NatMags’ Company is likely to post a double-digit decline and She, which is being relaunched in October, is expected to show a drop of almost 20 per cent.

Eve, which is in the 30-plus fashion and lifestyle market, is also expected to take a double-digit dive for the period. The title was sold by BBC Magazines to Haymarket in January. Meanwhile IPC Media’s Marie Claire is likely to post zero growth.

Insiders attribute this slowdown to a saturation of titles in the women’s monthly market and a spate of “me-too” launches.

Recent launches, such as Condé Nast’s monthly Easy Living, IPC’s Pick Me Up, and EMAP’s celebrity weekly Grazia, are all expected to outperform the market. Pick Me Up is rumoured to show a circulation of over 500,000 copies a week.

In the men’s market, GQ is expected to post a static circulation figure, while Loaded, Arena, FHM and Esquire are all expected to go up.

In the celebrity weekly market, Heat and Closer’s figures are expected to be down marginally.