Magazine circulation figures for the first half of 2012 confirmed the anticipated growth of digital subscriptions — up more than 70 percent — despite continued erosion in newsstand sales.
Celebrity titles and some women’s magazines were particularly hard hit on the newsstand.
On balance, total paid and verified circulation was basically flat, down 0.1 percent in the first six months from the same period a year ago, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
But single-copy sales — where publishers reap a nice profit — tumbled 9.6 percent, suggesting readers are still pinching pennies when it comes to impulse purchases.
For the first time, the Audit Bureau also broke out digital replica magazines, which contain the same content as the printed editions.
There were 258 magazines reporting a combined 5.4 million digital editions. That is more than a 150 percent increase from a year ago, when there were just 2 million digital subscriptions sold.
Only 59 magazines count digital subscriptions as part of the total circulation.
The digital-subscription slice of market is small, but growing at a more than 70 percent clip.
In the most recent six-month period, it amounted to 1.7 percent of total circulation. A year ago, digital replica copies of magazines amounted to less than 1 percent of the market.
Game Informer was the top digital magazine, with a circulation of 1,218,634, followed by Maxim (284,824), Cosmopolitan (185,673), Poder Hispanic (170,868) and National Geographic (134,656).
Rounding out the top 10 on the digital front were Popular Science (93,037); O, the Oprah Magazine (81,259); ESPN, The Magazine (75,600); Nylon (75,184); and Parenting (74,790).
Among the top 25 magazines, celebrity-oriented titles are still reeling in terms of single-copy sales.
At Condé Nast, Vanity Fair dropped 18.8 percent to only 283,938 newsstand copies sold, while Time Inc.’s No. 1 moneymaker, People, plunged 18.6 percent to 939,554.
Elsewhere in the celebrity market, what was once a shining star, Us Weekly, fell 11.4 percent to 572,875 newsstand copies sold; Star dropped 14.2 percent to 379,795; and In Touch lost 13.3 percent to 560,585.
Hearst’s biggest newsstand seller, Cosmopolitan, held sway with the highest newsstand average of 1,351,738, but that was still down 15.5 percent compared to a year ago.
The second-most profitable magazine for the publisher, O, the Oprah Magazine, took an even greater fall, tumbling 17.9 percent.
Hearst also boasted one of the bright spots on the newsstand, with Food Network Magazine surging 17.8 percent in the period to 400,254.
Condé flagship Vogue slumped 16.5 percent on newsstands to 300,955.
Oh, appy day!
The New Yorker became the first Condé title to launch an iPhone app that contains everything in the printed edition.
Pamela McCarthy, the executive editor who headed up the project, said the app that debuted yesterday was in the works for the better part of a year.
The number of people reading the New Yorker across all digital platforms was 286,664, according to the latest Audit Bureau figures.
That includes digital-only subscribers as well as people who have authenticated a print subscription on a mobile device.
However, the number of digital replica subscriptions amounted to only 44,439 copies per week.
The all-in subscription rate for print and digital is $69.99 and would not show up in the Audit Bureau numbers. A digital-only subscription costs $10 less at $59.99.
A single copy costs the same in print as it does on the tablet or smartphone: $5.99 a pop.
The New Yorker is offering a first issue free, but otherwise the price for a smartphone issue will be the same as for a tablet version.
Meanwhile, some industry observers were wondering why The New Yorker app was launched ahead of one for the more tech-centric Wired.
According to McCarthy, “The New Yorker is very text-driven and so is a little easier to load than some more visually driven magazines.”
BloombergBusinessweek and The Economist, which are also text-driven magazines, are among the leaders already out there with smartphone apps.
“We’re witnessing the evolution of smartphones from games and utility applications to the point where many people are now comfortable reading full editions of a magazine on the small screen,” McCarthy said.
And how many readers do they expect to see land on smartphones in the near future?
“We don’t know; we’ll put it out there and see,” she said.