U.S. single copy sales down 4%

"In a country where you have 22 magazines telling you about shoes, you know that all 22 magazines can't have a circulation of a million." -- Samir Husni (Mr. Magazine) commenting on the slump revealed by preliminary ABC results on U.S. magazine single copy sales.

According to Reuters: "Newsstands sold fewer magazines in the first half of 2006 compared with a year ago, as some markets were saturated with too many offerings while others had to compete with the Web."

Single-copy sales of magazines fell more than 4 percent to about 48.7 million copies in the first half of 2006, according to preliminary figures provided by U.S. magazine publishers to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Over all, circulation (including subscriptions) was up 2% for the same period.

Among news weeklies, Time magazine reported the biggest fall in newsstand sales of 24 percent. The magazine, owned by Time Warner Inc.'s Time Inc., plans to move its publication day to Friday from Monday to attract more readers on the weekend and boost sales.

"Magazine sales have fallen because many readers are spending more time on the Internet, and because of a thicket of similarly-themed titles, said Husni, chairman of the journalism department at the University of Mississippi.

John Harrington, a newsstand sales analyst and publisher of The New Single Copy newsletter, said a softer retail market contributed to the downturn. "There are fewer trips to the store, and magazines rely on impulse sales at retail," Harrington said.

Overall magazine circulation was 378.9 million copies for the six months ended June 30, 2006, up 2 percent from the year-earlier period, according to the audit bureau data.