ABC Results Reveal Resilient Brands In Challenging Conditions

IPC Media today unveils its latest round of ABC figures, highlighting strong brand performances despite challenging market conditions.

IPC chief executive Evelyn Webster says: “While there is no denying that all media owners are facing challenging times, IPC is strongly positioned to take advantage of its huge range of powerful brands across platforms. In our core markets we are seeing continued share growth, driving retail sales value and benefiting from great brand loyalty.

“Continued investment in our digital brands is paying dividends as key sites including NME.com, Nuts.co.uk, Mousebreaker, Trusted Reviews, Goodtoknow, Housetohome, Wallpaper.com, Nowmagazine.co.uk and Whatsontv.co.uk deliver richer content and substantial growth across all metrics.”

ABC highlights

Look delivers an ABC of 314,329, up 2.3% on the period and 2.9% on the year - significantly outperforming both the weeklies and fashion sectors
Nuts grows its share of the total men’s weekly market to a record 61.7%, with a circulation of 234,034
woman&home delivers another superb performance. Reporting a year-on-year increase of 5.1% to 353,160, the magazine for women aged 40-plus is celebrating its best performance for 12 years
Essentials delivers growth with its practical and inspiring content. It is up by 4.6% on the year, with an ABC of 98,487
In Style, the upmarket fashion and style bible, is up 0.8% on the year at 180,987 and outperforming the fashion sector
What’s on TV’s Group Product Report, released today, shows the brand selling 1,318,093 copies each week, and achieving a 44% increase in unique users to www.whatsontv.co.uk, now at 516,000
TVTimes delivers growth and increases sales by 1.9% on the period with ABC of 343,226
Uncut delivers a rock solid performance, up 0.2% to 87,069 on the period in a monthly music sector that has declined by 2.9%
Soaplife has increased sales by a stunning 9.6% on the year with an ABC of 112,275
Angler’s Mail performs brilliantly, with a 7% year-on-year increase to 34,668
Prediction celebrates a 6.8% year-on-year increase, delivering an ABC of 14,646 and growing its market share by 1.9%
Trusted Reviews recently reported a great ABCe, showing unique users up 37% on the year, and page impressions up 45% during the same period. The site now reaches 2,456,763 unique users, resulting in 13,708,776 page views.


IPC Ignite – men & music

Overview
In the Men’s sector, IPC Media increases its share of annualised newsstand sales from 51.8% in JJ08 to 52.6% in JD 08. Nuts and Loaded now sell 28.8% more men’s lifestyle magazines than Bauer Consumer Media, up from 22.2% last period. Digitally, Nuts.co.uk and Loaded.co.uk now reach nearly two million unique users every month.
Almost 10 million music magazines are sold each year and the Music sector generates almost £20m in RSV on the UK newsstand each year, with £9.4m generated by the two weeklies alone. With NME and Uncut, IPC Ignite represents 35.3% of annualised music magazine sales.
The UK is the only country in the world with a weekly music press and over 4.8 million of the music magazines sold each year in the UK are weeklies.

IPC Ignite managing director Eric Fuller says: “Every single one of our brands has increased its market share on the UK newsstand. Add to this their growing reach through other platforms – from nuts.co.uk to NME Radio and beyond – and you have a portfolio well positioned for the current market conditions.”

Nuts & Loaded
Nuts posts an ABC of 234,034, growing its share of the weekly sector from 60.8% to 61.7%. This is Nuts’ highest share of the weekly sector since launch.
Almost half (48.9%) of all men’s lifestyle magazines sold at the UK newsstand last year were copies of Nuts.**
Nuts is the biggest men’s title in the UK by RSV, worth in excess of £18.2m last year – and worth 60% more than Zoo, and more than twice as much as FHM on the UK newsstand.
Loaded posts an ABC of 90,071, now selling more copies on the UK newsstand than Maxim, Arena and Esquire combined. Both Loaded and Nuts have increased their respective market shares at UK newsstands on the period.
The addition of the Mousebreaker casual games portfolio to the mix has extended Ignite’s digital reach to more than 10 million users every month.
Omniture figures for January 2009 reveal that www.nuts.co.uk now delivers in excess of 1.5 million unique users every month, enjoying over 77 million page impressions.

Nuts publishing director Jo Smalley says: “Nuts has sold more than 71 million copies since we launched in 2004. Building on this heritage, we’ve continued to expand Nuts across all platforms, growing our overall audience to stellar proportions. Indeed, no other magazine from any sector can match Nuts’ overall performance as a multi-platform power brand.”

Uncut
Uncut – the UK’s most authoritative music and movie magazine – grows its market share in a market that has declined by 2.9%, with a total ABC of 87,069, up 0.2% on the period.
UK newsstand sales of Uncut are also up 0.2% against the previous six months in a monthly music sector which has seen a 2.5% decline at newsstand. Uncut’s UK newsstand share has also increased from 18.9% to 19.4% period-on-period. This is Uncut’s highest share since JJ04.
This ABC period saw the successful launch of the Uncut Music Award – a major new addition to the music prize landscape, celebrating the most inspiring and richly rewarding album of the year.
Continued collaborations with Mean Fiddler to launch Club Uncut at the Borderline venue and the brand’s on-going relationship with the Latitude Festival demonstrate Uncut’s deep connection to its loyal audience.
NME
NME’s overall multi-platform proposition now includes NMETV, NME Radio, NME Mobile, the NME Awards, the Big Gig and NME Tours. Across these platforms, the NME brand now reaches more than one million people every week.
NME.com attracted 4.3 million unique users in January*, 36% up on its August ABCe, and collected three industry awards within this ABC period – Best Music Magazine at the BT Digital Music Awards, Editorial Team of the Year at the AOP Awards, and Best Digital Publication at the Record of the Day Awards for Music Journalism and PR.
NME sells more copies on the UK newsstand in a month than Q, Mojo, Classic Rock and Word combined. 29.7% of all music magazines sold every year is a copy of NME.
Earlier this week, NME announced a partnership with online newsagent John Menzies Digital to launch an innovative distribution campaign designed to take the unique benefits of NME magazine to an online audience (read more here).

Publishing director Paul Cheal says: “NME is dedicated to making its unique editorial voice and authority heard, seen and read wherever music fans choose to interact – be it print, radio, TV, mobile, online or at events. You only have to look at the continued growth of NME.com to understand that our target audience is engaged with the NME brand. And NME magazine continues to sit right at the heart of that brand.”

** Men’s Lifestyle sector includes: Loaded, FHM, Maxim, GQ, Esquire, Arena, Nuts, Zoo


IPC Connect – women’s weeklies

Overview
The Women’s Weeklies market remains the biggest category in magazine publishing. Total UK newsstand sales for the market averaged 8.4 million copies each week in the period, equating to annual copy sales of 425.5 million – delivering £470.1million in retail sales value.
IPC Connect’s share of the UK newsstand market is 29.4% up 0.4 percentage points. The seven-strong Connect portfolio now sells 124.7 million copies at the UK newsstand and generates £119million in RSV.

IPC Connect managing director Fiona Dent says: “The Women’s Weeklies market remains the biggest, the most valuable and still the most hotly contested in magazine publishing. Our titles continue to reap the benefits of our extensive redevelopment and investment strategy. It’s clear that the credit crunch is impacting on repertoire buying in some sectors during the period, but our titles show real brand resilience and continue to drive innovation. And it’s great to see Look perform so well – proof positive that truly innovative titles can score major successes on the newsstand.”

Look
Launched in February 2007, Look delivers an ABC of 314,329, up 2.3% on the period and 2.9% on the year - significantly outperforming the fashion market as a whole and Grazia in particular.
Look now sells more than 1.3 million copies every month, delivering £23.1million in RSV during 2008 - ranking it as the 10th highest revenue generating title on the UK newsstand.
The title has also been phenomenally well received by advertisers, with a 45% growth in ad volumes in 2008.
Earlier this month Look debuted a hugely successful pop-up Fashion Swap boutique in London’s West End. Over 1,300 readers swapped over 14,000 items, including unique pieces from celebrities including Gwen Stefani and Fearne Cotton.

Fiona adds: “Look is a genuinely unique proposition and a publishing success story. It’s captured the hearts and minds of a generation of women. We’re outperforming the market because we understand our readers, we deliver just what they want, and we keep on innovating.”

Now
Under editor Abigail Blackburn, Now is showing an improving sales trend in a very competitive market, despite being significantly undercut in cover price by cheaper rivals. With a circulation of 433,509, Now is showing an improving sales trend compared to the two previous periods.
Now’s share of the celebrity market is up 0.2 percentage points year-on-year to 11%, and annualised RSV is also up 0.6% year-on-year to £26.5m, while the RSV of the Celebrity sector as a whole is down 2.8%.
www.nowmagazine.co.uk unveiled its new look in May 2008 and since then traffic levels have soared. In December the site delivered 3.7 million page impressions, and an impressive 592,000 unique users, up 51% in eight months.

Chat and Pick Me Up
In the highly competitive Real Life sector Chat continues to hold its number two position with a circulation of 469,407, closing the sales gap on Take A Break. Chat generates £18.3m in annualised RSV.
Pick Me Up remains number four in the real life sector, with an ABC of 374,268. The title generates £12.2m in RSV on the UK newsstand and sold 18 million copies in 2008.
Both titles continue to outperform rivals Full House and Real People and combined, Chat and Pick Me Up represent a 28.8% share of the real life newsstand market.

Woman and Woman’s Own
On the UK newstand Woman and Woman’s Own continue to dominate the Mainstream sector, with a combined sector share of 56.2%.
Combined, Woman and Woman’s Own outsell rivals Bella and Best by 142,886 copies every week.
Woman remains number one in the mainstream market with an ABC of 347,585. It extends its lead over Best to 51,615 copies each week and generates over £15.6m in annualised RSV, outperforming the sector by 2.8 percentage points
Woman’s Own remains number two in the mainstream sector with an ABC of 325,330. The brand sells in excess of 42% more at the UK newsstand than Bella, with annualised RSV of £14.2m.

Woman’s Weekly
The brand remains number one in the mature market, with a circulation of 340,635. The editorial refresh unveiled in August is already making a positive impact, ensuring an improved sales trend, with circulation down just 1.7% period-on-period compared to 7.2% year-on-year.
Since the new look hit the newsstand, Woman’s Weekly’s market share has increased against rivals My Weekly and People’s Friend.

Meanwhile www.goodtoknow.co.uk – the site that connects women with the best practical and inspirational ideas, tips and advice - continues to deliver exceptional growth. Page impressions smashed through the four million mark for the first time in January, with 4.2 million pages served up to almost 600,000 unique users*.

IPC Southbank- women’s glossies & home interest

Overview
Southbank operates in the lucrative Women’s Fashion, Lifestyle and Home Interest sectors. Southbank’s portfolio generates more than £45.6m in retail value per year.
IPC Southbank has outperformed the market, including an exceptional result from woman&home.

woman&home and Essentials
woman&home the magazine for women aged 40-plus, is the star performer of the glossies sector, reporting a year-on-year increase of 5.1%, and delivering an ABC of 353,160. woman&home is seeing its best performance for 12 years.
Southbank’s Essentials has also performed exceptionally well reporting an ABC of 98,487, up by 4.6% on the year.
Essentials’ practical positioning perfectly captures the consumer mood.

In Style and Marie Claire
Having introduced a new look at the end of this period, In Style’s result, up 0.8% year-on-year to 180,987 is testament to the strength of the brand and the creativity of the editorial team.
New In Style editor Eilidh MacAskill will soon be joining, following Trish Halpin’s move to Marie Claire.
Southbank’s Marie Claire remains the UK’s third-biggest fashion monthly and is stable on the period with an ABC of 314,259.
New editor Trish Halpin took the helm of Marie Claire at the beginning of this month, and will be focusing on delivering an intelligent and entertaining mix for the magazine’s style-conscious readership.

IPC Southbank managing director Jackie Newcombe says: “Southbank is reporting some of the best results within the fashion and lifestyle market. Once again, woman&home is a leading light, delivering enviable growth and achieving its best circulation in 12 years. It is certainly the brand that everyone is talking about right now.”

Home interest
In home interest, the sector reflects the cooling of the housing market, but there are encouraging signs of renewed interest as we enter the spring. Southbank’s Homes & Gardens and Country Homes & Interiors are among the top performers.
Southbank’s market-leading home interest portfolio includes Ideal Home, Livingetc, Country Homes & Interiors, 25 Beautiful Homes and Homes & Gardens.
Country Homes & Interiors continues its run of ABC success, reporting a circulation of 88,518. This result marks the magazine’s fourth consecutive increase on the period, and a rise of 2.2% on the year.
Meanwhile, Homes & Gardens maintains its lead over House & Garden, delivering an ABC of 140,264, up 0.1% on the year.

Jackie says: “The home interest sector is naturally very challenging at the moment but we are extremely well-placed, with a very affluent readership base and titles in all the key sub sectors of the market. Our market-leading position makes us much stronger to face the challenges than any of our competitors.”

IPC TX - TV weeklies

Overview
In the competitive TV Weeklies sector, IPC TX continues to drive cover prices and invest in the editorial development of its market-leading portfolio.
IPC TX’s share of the UK newsstand market is 44.6%. The TX TV weeklies portfolio now sells 103.1 million copies at the UK newsstand and generates £64million in RSV per annum.
RSV in the sector has increased by 2.9% on the period to almost £163million.
Total UK newsstand sales for the market averaged 4.54 million copies each week in the period.

Charlie Meredith, IPC TX managing director, says: “The TV Weeklies sector is the second-biggest sector in the consumer magazine market, and its growing retail sales value shows its strength. At TX, our strategy is continually to strengthen our titles, enabling us to drive prices and attract discerning readers.”

What’s on TV and TV easy
IPC TX today publishes an ABC Group Product Report for flagship brand What’s on TV, revealing its true cross-channel audience. In print, What’s on TV is seeing an improving sales trend, down only 2.1% period-on-period, selling 1,318,093 copies.
As announced earlier this week, the website www.whatsontv.co.uk is attracting 516,000 monthly unique users, an increase of 44% on its 358,700 unique users in December 2007.
What’s on TV’s overall brand reach stands at 1,834,093, up 5.1% year-on-year.
What’s on TV is priced at an 18% premium to value sector rival TV Choice, seeing it generate over £3.6m more in RSV. What’s on TV’s RSV is £31.5m
Sister title TV easy delivers an ABC of 212,419. The compact TV weekly magazine is seeing an improving sales trend and is performing strongly since introducing a bigger, but still handy-sized, format at the end of November last year.

TVTimes and TV & Satellite Week
Premium title TVTimes is also delivering an improving sales trend and has increased sales by 1.9% on the period, with an ABC of 343,226.
In addition, TVTimes has increased RSV by 8.7% period-on-period and by 1.5% year-on-year to £17.9m
TV & Satellite Week reports an ABC of 183,906 and it remains the biggest-selling multi-channel guide by far.
At £1.20, TV & Satellite Week is the highest priced title in the entire TV weeklies sector and it has grown RSV by 6% on the period and 1.4% on the year to £9.8m.

Soaplife
In the soaps sector, Soaplife has increased sales by 9.5% on the year, delivering an ABC of 112,275.
RSV for Soaplife has also increased by 5.5% year-on-year to £4.3m.

TX price increases: 2007 to date
What’s on TV increased by 1p to 43p in April 2007. In January 2008, the title increased to 45p; and in January 2009, it increased to 47p.
TV easy increased by 2p to 42p in April 2007. The title increased to 45p in January 2008; and in January 2009, it increased again to 47p.
TVTimes increased by 5p to 98p in January 2008. The title increased to £1 in August 2008; and in January 2009 it increased to £1.05.
TV & Satellite Week increased by 5p to £1.05 in January 2007. The titled increased to £1.10 in January 2008; and it increased to £1.20 in January 2009.

IPC Inspire – sport & hobbies

Overview
Inspire serves 24 ABC audited markets and holds the number one or number two spot in 21 of those.
Overall Inspire titles audited in this period delivered an RSV of over £31.8m.
IPC Inspire posts seven ABC increases this period. The division remains dedicated to extending its brand reach into specialist markets with its dedicated magazine websites and portals. And despite tough trading across the market, Inspire’s portfolio has grown on the year in terms of both volume and value share.

Highlights
Angler’s Mail performs brilliantly with a total ABC of 34,668, a 7% year-on-year increase, highlighting the success of its re-launch in 2007.
Prediction grows its newsstand market share by 1.6% with an ABC of 14,646 showing a year-on-year circulation increase of 6.8%.
Guitar - posts an ABC of 11,994, up 3%. This marks the title’s second consecutive year of increase.
The Railway Magazine maintains its market leadership over Steam Railway with an ABC of 35,100, up 1.3% on the year.
Yachting World and Classic Boat show resilient performances in what has been a challenging period for marine. They post their second consecutive year of growth, up 0.8% and 1.2% to 27,649 and 12,658 respectively.
Caravan delivers a solid ABC of 15,844, representing an annual increase of 0.4%, compared with a 8.1% decline for competitor Practical Caravan. This marks the second consecutive increase for Caravan.

Meanwhile, Trusted Reviews – IPC’s premier online source of technology news and reviews – had recent ABCe success with unique users up 37% on the year, and page views up 45% during the same period. The site now reaches 2,456,763 unique users, resulting in 13,708,776 page views.

IPC Inspire managing director Paul Williams says: “We’re operating in a tough economy so I’m very pleased that seven titles are showing ABC growth, led by Angler’s Mail up 7% year-on-year. We continue to research our consumers and develop our magazine brands to ensure that we’re producing the best magazines available in our markets. I’m delighted that the results of all this work show that we’re performing extremely well, particularly against our competitors.”

* Source: Omniture

IPC Media is one of the leading consumer magazine publishers in the UK. Its five publishing divisions are: IPC Southbank, IPC TX, IPC Ignite, IPC Connect and IPC Inspire. IPC is wholly owned by Time Warner, one of the world’s largest media groups.