The data, which covered the first six months of 2021 – a period that the UK spent in lockdown, showed a 38% leap in circulation year-on-year for Bauer Media’s Garden Answers, to 70,391, and a 36% jump for Immediate Media’s BBC Gardeners’ World, to 301,026. Bauer Media’s Garden News climbed by 15% to 43,507.
Successful cooking titles included Immediate Media’s Olive, which saw a circulation increase of 24% to 42,325, and BBC Good Food, also from Immediate Media, which climbed by 23% year-on-year to 194,471.
Immediate executive chairman Tom Bureau said: “These figures once again illustrate the strength of our portfolio. Our high-quality content focused on our audience’s passions has proved ever more popular during [the] pandemic and as we’ve unlocked, as people look to our trusted brands to guide and inspire them.
“Immediate has seen growth across all our platforms enabling us to launch new products and services to our growing audience as we continue our transformational development.”
Immediate said it was also the number one publisher in the UK for subscriptions in the period with 1.2m subscribers, up 20% year-on-year. This included a 55% increase in subscriptions to BBC Gardeners’ World.
The biggest year-on-year circulation increase was achieved by Redan Publishing’s Fun to Learn – Friends, which climbed by 44% to 51,618. Two more children’s titles from the publisher, Fun to Learn – Peppa Pig, and Sparkle World, were also among the star performers, posting increases of 29% to 55,709, and 24% to 47,008, respectively.
Some news titles also performed well, with Dennis Publishing’s children’s publication The Week Junior up by 18% year-on-year to 100,916, and Pressdram’s Private Eye up by 3% to 237,338.
Anna Bassi, editorial director of The Week Junior, said: “I’m delighted that The Week Junior continues to attract new readers whilst retaining long-term subscribers.
“We strive to provide children with magazines that they genuinely love to read, and seeing strong results like this shows that the hard work of our talented editorial team is paying off.”
The women’s weeklies market has been in steep decline for years, and there was no improvement in the latest set of results, with every title reported on in the sector decreasing in circulation year-on-year.
The market’s biggest title, Bauer Media’s Take a Break, saw circulation down by 12% year-on-year to 337,688, while Closer experienced the sharpest fall, down 19% to 97,424.
The title with the biggest circulation in the six-month period was Cedar Communications’ Tesco Magazine, which posted circulation figures that were flat year-on-year at 1,941,887. The UK’s biggest paid-for title, Bauer Media’s TV Choice, was second overall, with circulation also unchanged year-on-year at 1,035,403.
Circulation figures for many titles across all market sectors were unavailable for this period, however, as most magazines are audited each full year by ABC and appear in the bigger February round-up, according to Press Gazette.
Mediatel added that publishers including Condé Nast, Future, Hearst UK, and Reach had chosen not to report figures at the half-year stage due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which saw lower high street footfall and distribution disruptions impacting sales.
