City and regional magazines booming in the U.S.

Capell's Circulation (Feb. 12) reports that city, state and regional magazines in the United States have doubled their circulation in the past decade, and have become the largest publishing category, with 300 titles. This, according to a story in Folio: magazine. Thirty-three of the 76 magazines audited by ABC posted gains and just 17, losses.

The 76 titles audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) have a combined circulation of more than 31 million and 8 of the titles (AAA Westways, Southern Living, Via, AAA Going Places, AAA Living, AAA World, Home & Away and Sunset) have more than a million each. One third of the 300 are controlled-circ.

Big gainers over the past 10 years were: Orange Coast(up 215%); Phoenix Home & Garden(70%); Carolina Country (60%); D Magazine (43%); Caribbean Travel & Life(35%); Atlanta (29%); Southern Accents,(27%); Delaware Today and Rural Arkansas (both 23%); and Palm Springs Life (22%).

· ABC-audited titles averaged circulations of 150,000.

· Titles are growing fastest in the South; biggest losses are in the East.

· The number of titles selling more than 1,000 pages of advertising in 2006 was up 54 percent over the past decade, and almost 30 percent of ABC-audited city, regional and state publications sell over 1,000 pages per year.

*(Capell is one of the last of the old-time newsletter publishers, who maintains no web presence and has a tiny, hugely influential audience of circulation directors. So there is nothing to link to.)