Overview of the Magazine Industry

There are many magazine publishers hoping to capture the magazine industry, but the largest consumer is Bauer with a 25% share of the market which is closely followed by IPC media with a 20% share of the market, both of them producing big brand magazines such as; Marie Claire, Now, Kerrang!, and Grazia. Due to dominating the magazine industry, they are now the biggest publishers in the industry which allows them to branch out their product and explore the different genres therefore resulting in them gaining the potential to become even bigger media producers.  In stark contrast with publishers like Bauer and IPC are the less popular publishers which produce magazines such as Herst. These companies fail to become as well-known as they lack a wide variety of magazines and possibly distribute them to just one area, resulting in a smaller revenue.

The magazine industry is continuously explanding and growing. Today, there are over 3,200 different consumer titles, compared to 1980 when there were only around 1,383 titles, so we get a clear view of how the industry gains more products in order to keep their audiences interested. In 1970, only around 1.3 billon magazines were said to be sold each year. Now the statistics show that this is about 1.4 billion a year, having descreased drastically from an almost doubled figure between then and now. This is probably because of the accessibility to technology and availability of online magazines etc.

The main focus within the magazine industry is to sell the product, probably in newsagents and stores like WHSmiths, in order to generate a profit. Some publishers may include one of their titles as part of an offer in a newspaper which could attract more readers. Consumer magazines make up a large percentage - 90% - of titles sold in newsagents. The majority of these are designed to inform and/or entertain.