Women's mags thrive amid declines

Sales of women's magazines are up but lifestyle and current affairs titles are declining in the latest circulation figures out today.

The country's best-read magazine, the New Zealand Woman's Weekly, rose 1.5 per cent to 102,121 sales in the Audit Bureau of Circulation results in the year to December 31, 2005. Woman's Day was up 4.6 per cent and New Idea by 4.8 per cent.

But it was a different story for lifestyle titles: ACP Media saw its Your Home & Garden fall by 6 per cent, NZ Home & Entertaining drop by 11 per cent and Fashion Quarterly decline 3.6 per cent. The Fairfax-owned NZ House & Garden fell by 7.6 per cent, Cuisine by 7 per cent and NZ Gardener by 5.8 per cent.

ACP's two current-affairs offerings, Metro (down 8 per cent) and North & South (down 11.3 per cent), were hard hit, with Metro now selling just 15,500 copies and North & South 33,000 a month. The Listener, published by APN, the owner of the Herald, fell by 3 per cent but kept well clear of competitors at 73,000 sales a week.