The New York Times and AdAge each have reports on new data from the Audit Bureau of Circulations:
“Newsstand sales of magazines fell more than 4 percent, to about 48.7 million copies, in the first half of 2006.”
However, there is a new twist on these numbers:
“The impact of a major change in the way the Audit Bureau of Circulations tallies a magazine’s circulation was revealed today, as the bureau released its data for the first half of 2006 this morning. Those figures reveal for the first time the effect of removing public-place circulation — titles found in doctors’ offices and beauty parlors — from the paid column and placing them under the new label “verified.” The advent of verified matters because publishers have traditionally pegged their ad rates to paid circulations — which until now included many public-place copies.”