Magazines ABC Q4 2020: Categories continue to haemorrhage

Consumer magazines

The trend of no submissions and discontinued publications continued from the previous quarters into Q4. In the Woman’s Special category for the six publications there was no data, two no submissions, one ceased publication, one reregistered, one resigned and one change cycle.

The Woman’s General category had only four magazines submit data, but all four - Kuier, Fairlady, Sarie and True Love - showed increase over the previous quarter and prior year. It had seven resignation, one no submission and two discontinued.

The Parenting category also suffered with only three submissions out of 11, all which had declines on the previous quarter and prior year.

Overall, there was a sprinkling of increases on the previous quarter with The Gardner /Tuiner, Go! Drive & Camp/Ry & Sleep, Magnum and Compleat Golfer showing good numbers.

B2B magazines

The category had 25 publications that made gains on the previous quarter and prior year. The Civil Construction, Electrical Engineering and Architecture categories fared the best while the Retail category, with no submissions performed the worst. Four of the seven magazines under Civil Construction gained on the previous quarter and on the prior year, while Electrical Engineering had two. The Architecture category saw all its seven publications submit data. Timber IQ had an increase of 46.5% for both the previous quarter and prior year.

Black Business Quarterly and Money Marketing were the only two stand outs in the Management category.

Of the 13 Retail publications, only three submitted data.

Custom magazines

The pickings were slim in this category with the Leisure and In-Flight magazines faring the worst. Ironically, the biggest increase on the previous quarter and prior year came from Skyways with In-flight Magazine also improving on the previous quarter. However, these were the only two magazines that submitted data, with four terminations and one discontinuation in this section. Faring no better was the Leisure sector, with only two submissions, and three discontinuations and three no submissions. The Electrical and Family Interest sectors had no submissions.

In total the category had only a few publications that showed an increase on the previous quarter and prior year. Accountancy SA, Skyways and Forum Tydskif had increases in both, while In-flight Magazine, Taste and WolBoere/Wool Farmer had increase on the previous quarter. De Rebus, SA Pharmaceutical Journal, SA Pharmacist's Assistant (SAPA) and Fitlife all had increases on the prior year.

Free magazines

Of the 12 magazines in this category only one did not submit data and there were two discontinuations. All magazines increased on the previous quarter expect one, while only one increased on the prior year, with the rest showing a decline.

Web Traffic

Six titles rebranded, one resigned and three were discontinued.

Email newsletter

Of 39 email newsletters, 12 resigned, and five titles were discontinued.

Magazines ABC Q3 2020: No good news in magazine categories

Danette Breitenbach  11 Nov 2020