The big dogs muscle in with PMB results

Canadian titles have been shouldered aside for top spot in readership -- readers per copy (RPC), a measure of efficiency -- by two mammoth U.S. titles in the 2006 Print Measurement Bureau results released today. The topline readership report is available free online. The study is based on 25,165 interviews conducted over 24 months (October 2003 - September 2005).

Top spot, with 23.7 readers per copy, goes to Sports Illustrated, which is in the full study for the first time and has a measured readership (12+) of 1.96 million.

People magazine has 20.2 and a total readership of 3.7 million.

Among other interesting results:

• Outdoor Canada, which remains the Canadian (if no longer over-all) RPC leader, had 20.5 last year and has declined to 18.9. Its total readership is now 1.7 million, compared to 1.8 million last year (this, despite a small increase in circulation);
  
• Maclean's magazine, which had 6.3 RPC last year, took a significant jump to 7.1. Total readership has increased by 145,000 since last year's results, despite cutting circulation by 25,000; (since 2002 the magazine circulation has declined by 90,000 and its total readership by 203,000);
  
• Flare and its perpetual rival Fashion are in lockstep. This time, Flare has 11 RPC compared with 10.9 last time, and total readership of 1.81 million compared with 1.8; Fashion has 13, the same as 2005 and total readership of 1.98 million, compared with 1.94.
  
• Chatelaine has improved its RPC to 6.4 from 6.0 in 2005; total readership has increase 166,000, despite a decline of 18,000 in circulation;
• The top French language title is Dernière Heure , with 19.4 , up from 17.1 last year. However this year, its total circulation dropped from 37,000 to 26,000 and its total readership by almost 128,000 to 504,000.

UPDATE: Media In Canada provides its own report on the PMB results, understandably concentrating on total readership results rather than RPC. The latter, we think, is a better indicator of both readership and efficiency in reaching those readers.

Nevertheless, here are some of the top total readership figures for 2006, in descending order by language:

English (millions, 12+)
Reader's Digest 7.2
Chatelaine 4.4
People 3.7
Canadian Living 4.4
Canadian Geographic 4.1
What's Cooking* 3.5
Maclean's 2.9
Time 2.8
TV Guide 2.6
Canadian Gardening 2.4
Food & Drink 2.2
TV Times 2.1

French (millions, 12+)
Coup de pouce 1.4
Châtelaine 1.3
7 Jours 1.3
Sélection du Reader's Digest 1.3
L’actualité 1.1
Touring (Fr & Eng) 1.1
TV 7 Jours / TV hebdo 1.0

FURTHER UPDATE: Reader's Digest was not slow off the mark taking credit for being the "most-read magazine in Canada". They have a paid circulation of almost 1 million copies in English and get 7.2 million readers.

STILL FURTHER UPDATE: Maclean's's lead columnist Paul Wells triumphally interprets the results as vindication and as serving up an implicit dish of crow for Professor Christopher Dornan of Carleton, who had predicted "disaster" from the magazine's new editorial direction.

MORE OF AN UPDATE: Maclean's reported more than the topline numbers in its press release Thursday. The topline is publicly available. Demographic breakdowns of sub-categories are available only to PMB subscribers. Here is what the Maclean's release said:

"According to PMB, Maclean's posted readership gains in key areas including a 10% increase in the 18 to 34 year age category and a 7% increase in urban markets based on English adults 18+."

It should be pointed out that Maclean's was never very strong in the younger age groups, so a 10% increase, while good, is on a relatively small base. Of more importance is the increase in urban markets, which are critically important to advertisers.

*These are one-year results only, for the custom-published magazine for Kraft, produced by Redwood Custom Communications.