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Are there too many titles in the women's weekly sector, Alasdair Reid asks
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Let's ignore the Audit Bureau of Circulations figures for a while - and point out, in our most militantly optimistic fashion, that the women's weekly sector is a shining example of the virtues of diversity, variety and competition.
In the main women's weekly section, the ABC report lists two dozen titles, representing the very best efforts of the likes of H Bauer, Northern & Shell, Bauer Consumer Media, IPC and Hearst Magazines. And there are also weeklies, of course, hi the lifestyle and fashion category too. Not bad for a sector for which the last rites have been rehearsed on at least a handful of occasions in living memory.
And yet women's weeklies have survived the expansion of daytime programming on TV, the colour supplement explosion in the national press and, more latterly, the evolution of websites pandering to the celebrity market and, thanks to the likes of Mumsnet,more practical and domestic interests too.
That's the positive spin. If you're inclined to be slightly less Pollyanna-ish, however, you might point out that the AB C figures represent something of a horror story. Again.
The market leader, Take a Break, was down 6.1 per cent year on year to803,555;thesecond-placedNew/ was down just over 10 per cent to 515,975; and, while number three in the league table, OK!, lost very little ground...