New Gun Magazine Circulation figures

[mec]

They've trended downward for a long time and took a big slump in 2002-03. Now the general gun magazines seem to be regaining some readership while the specialty handgun titles still haven't reached bottom.

Guns and Ammo,2001- According to the Audit Bureau of Circulation and Bacon's magazine directory had a paid circulaton of 607,971. It was number 150 out of 200 and droped to 179 over the next couple of years.

June 2003- 472,000 Dec.03-452,473;June '04-454,442;
Dec '04- 454,074. - Bottoming out in Dec.'03 and rebounding last year.

Shooting Times went like this:Bacon’s Magazine Directory 2001 202,410; Dec 2003- 171,620;June '04- 175,873;
Dec. '04 172,731 - Gaining back about 1,000 readers in the last 12 months.

Peterson's Handguns was at 158,074 in 2001 then:
Dec 2003- 128,641;June '04-120,796; Dec '04- 115,033.
Seemingly undergoing a powerdive in readership compared to Guns and Ammo and Shooting Times- Also owned by Primedia.

According to Bacon's American Handgunner had 171,581 in 2001 then:
Dec '03 107,361; June '04-106,810; Dec 04- 103,555
While Guns- another FMG magazine had 168,000 in 2001 and:
Dec '03- 71,607;June '04- 73,186;and Dec'04 -77,185-regaining readership over the past two reporting periods.

 

[DigMe]

I often come across offers for free subscriptions to non-gun magazines on the internet. Many of these magazines do this all the time just to increase their number of readers because their main source of income is advertising and they can get more advertisers if they can show that they have more readers. That would be awesome if some of the gun rags would do this. I know that there are many Field and Stream subscribers here that wouldn't be otherwise thanks to the free 2 year subscription that they offered last year and that many of us took advantage of.

brad cook

 

[mec]

That pretty well sums it up. The statistics are collected by Audit Bureau of Circulation - an outfit in business to help advertisers decide where to put their money.

Field and Stream has a paid circulation of 1,524,897 while outdoor life has dropped below the one million mark to 937,895.

The gun magazines probably arn't quite rich enough to be able to afford give-aways. One of the factors that caused magazine sales of all sorts to drop was the disappearance of the clearing house magazine sales businesses. Some of that may have come from people getting on telephone solicitor no-call lists. Another factory is tightened standards for reporting paid circulation. The Audit Bureau gets all kind of upset when a magazine reports fraudulent circulation numbers to hump up their desirability to advertisers.

One recent article said Soldier of Fortune had dropped over a period of years from about 180,000 per month circualtion to 66,000. The advertisers bailed and invested their bucks in Guns and Ammo and American Handgunner. Shooting Times Handguns went under a few years ago- declining circulation. It would be interesting to see how low the circulation can go before they stop being viable. We may find out by watching the twice-yearly Audit bureau reports. Petersons Handguns is dropping really fast but still has bigger numbers than American Handgunner.

 

[alex-v.]

I subscribe to several magazines and then pick up more at the book store. I think that part of the problem for the specialty magazines like RELOADER and AMERICAN HANDGUNNER among others is the lack of exposure on the shelf at the bookstore magazine racks. My understanding is that part of the problem is the magazine distributing companies. There is only so much space on the shelf and it the magazine is low volume then the distributor will not recommend it as often. So, the general public becomes exposed to the major titles and might never see the minor ones.

 

[HankB]

There are a number of reasons for falling circulation:

1. Rising prices discourage purchases. Forget inflation, many people just don't want to pay $5 for a glorified comic book.

2. Regurgitated articles. I mean, how many times can they run "Joe Blow's Favorite .357 Loads" or "Tactical Combat Wundernine Roundup" before readers catch on?

3. "Reviews" in which EVERY product tested is praised - even the junkiest pieces of garbage imaginable.

4. More ads - poor as it is, the volume of "content" seems to be declining as the amount of space devoted to ads (many of questionable taste) increases.

5. The rise of Internet sites - including The High Road - which provide more (and usually higher quality) content than the gun rags . . . along with an opportunity to participate.

 

[landon74]

From what I see is at least once a year there's an article on the undying popularity of the 30-'06, .270. Then you have hey check out these new wonder super short wonder mags. Then some reviews of a 4000$ 28 gauge shotgun.
In the new issue of G&A there are 20 full page ads counting the covers, 13 half pages ad, and 3 and a half pages in the ad section. In a magazine of 80 or so pages. I understand they have to sell advertising to stay in business, but gees.
So when you figure that with all the rehashed crap, you have maybe 5 pages of new material. Perhaps that's why readership is heading south......

 

[alex-v.]

2. Regurgitated articles. I mean, how many times can they run "Joe Blow's Favorite .357 Loads" or "Tactical Combat Wundernine Roundup" before readers catch on?

This is a problem for some of us. We have been around for decades and have been reading the magazines for just as long. So, yes, we are re-reading the same material year after year.

But, what about the new guy. How is he supposed to be exposed to the same info that we were. I tolerate the repeated articles. On occasion a bit of new information is presented or a new viewpoint.

 

[taliv]

my subscription to shooting times is up next month, along with another gun rag that's so interesting that i can't even remember its name. i'm not renewing either. they're just so not exciting.

 

[mec]

Some of it is burn out- cant expect to keep getting excited about a limited body of material once you get to the reading glasses stage. I don't think the internet forums are taking over near to the degree that would explain the big gunzine crash of a couple of years ago. Registered members of the bigger boards plus the 66 or more percent who brouse but don't sign in dont even equal the 66,000 paid circulation of the dying Soldier of Fortune.

One reason the gunmagazines will never get back to the leve of the 70s ,80s and 90s is that we don't need them for RKBA news any more. Now that the major media have been replaced by less leftwing outfits, we can get the news on TV or over the internet. We also have some good friends on the conservative webzines and in talk radio

The last time I looked at an american handgunner- a year or so ago, the page count was close to 120 and there were only a handfull of pages that didn't have at least one advertisement. . Most had more than one and a good many were totally taken up with adds. American HG might have sped up the attrition with that TurdSucker Scrape surrounding the Thunder Ranch Smith 21.-and then again, that deal might have slowed it down. The real diver is Peterson's Handguns having dropped from 128,000 a year ago to 115,000 in december. Still a lot more paid circulation than AH but catching down fast.

 

[alex-v.]

Some of it is burn out- cant expect to keep getting excited about a limited body of material once you get to the reading glasses stage.

I like that one, mec.

Another reason for the decline could be the constant criticism of the usual magazines.

 

[mec]

"......There are a number of reasons for falling circulation..."

You may be on to something with that about newstand exposure. I went into a hastings book today and found No G&A or American Handgunner but a couple of months worth of GunWorld, along with Handguns and Combat handguns. Nobody else in town even stocks GunWorld. The issues of the above magazines looked more like Pamphlets than magazines. Gunworld seems to have 80 pages in each issue while Handguns is down to 69 or 70.

Right now, the Audit Bureau isn't auditing any of the mags below but somebody at Bacon's Magazine review came up with some 2001 figures. They were higher than some of the major titles are as of 12-04 and it is very likely that they underwent much of the same fall off in circulation as the ones who are continuoulsy audited: It does look like Guns and Weapons for Law Enforcement lost 12,788 readers they couldn't really afford to loose and WAGS went from 22,000 in 1997 to 18,000 in 2001. I wonder if they are still there?
GunWorld 128,402
Combat Handguns 126,498

Handloader 109,150
Rifle 108,350

Guns and Weapons
For Law enforcement 95,758 2004 – 83,000- New York Review of magazines

Guns of the Old West 60,000

New Gun Week 21,000
Women and Guns 18,000-Hearst NewsPapers 1997 -22,000


Accurate Rifle 8,000

Meanwhile, the Internet forums look like this:
The Firingline.com has a registered membership of 25,098
The High Road.org has 15,956
Sixgunner.com has 4436
24hourcampfire.com has 7421
and Graybeard has 12059
The seem to have two to three times the "visitors" on board as registered members at any one time but even so, the biggest of them don't come close to many of the gun magazines.

One big difference is that when you get mad at the gun magazines, you can drop your subscription or ignore them on the newstands. Once you have signed up for an Internet forum, you are there FOREVER. I know this because I tried to get off the Guns and Game Forum. The weaners were spamming me with little fine print explaining that it wasn't really spam because I had signed onto Guns and Game Forums. I never did get them to take me off their victim's list.

So, an unknown and substantial number of internet forums members have kicked the bucket, gotten mad and stomped off or exist only as binary blips in the great cosmic oooze.

 

[DigMe]

The only gun rag I get is American Rifleman now that I joined the NRA. I like it just fine and one gun rag a month about does it for me.

brad cook

 

[Standing Wolf]

Magazine writers and editors seem not to have noticed they're in competition with the internet—and losing badly.

Endless product endorsements don't still cut it, and the same old same old photography is plain old boring.

 

[mec]

I dont know. The biggest internet forums still have small numbers compared most of the print magazines. They've already lost out as far as second amendment activism, timely legislative reporting and early reporting of new products goes. The people at Gunblast.com- an online gunmagazine that features tests of current guns, are reporting a huge number if hits per day on the site and have noticed high hits on individual reviews. They seem to be seriously redefining the gun review business and most of the major magazines now send them test and evaluation samples-at first they just turned up their noses but have learned to take them seriously. The Quinns started this a few years ago because they were disgusted with dishonest magazine reviews.

 

[gulogulo1970]

I never subscribe to gun magazines but I buy them heavily every two or three years for several months. I catch up on my new gun knowledge. Over time I find them less and less useful. After a while you know almost everything they talk could about. I'm not saying there isn't a good article now and again. But, do I really want to spend $4 or $5 to maybe get one informative article? The High Road is a much better deal.

But even so subscription numbers seem really low.

 

[Bear Gulch]

If you read any of them for long enough you realize the they have become mouth pieces for the manufactureers. I recognize they need to know who pays their bills (adverts and not scripts), but it has reached a level that seems tawdry to me.

I used to get shooting times. I quit my scriot when they got rid of the dumb criminal awards.

 

[Harry Tuttle]

The magazine business sucks all over.

There are far too many other sources of entertainment available for a 1960s-70s print magazine mindset.

Today, many of the magazines derive the largest income portion from advertising.

As subscriptions fall, the kowtow to the $ creates an advertorial shift.
The advertisers want branded content. The subscribers are not stupid.
Subscriptions fall off. The rate base per page, for ad sales falls off.
Advertisers then buy 6 page advertising suppliments,
pretty soon the ads are designed to look like content,
and the whole mess implodes.

Gun magazines are a small niche publishing market.

Many stores will not even stock them on the newstand.

 

[Gunhead]

4-5 years ago I got so sick of the US gun magazines that I cancelled all my subscriptions. Why should I pay for something where almost every article or review is a paid advertisement??

Small Arms Review is the only exception that comes to my mind... If I want printed media and painfully objective reviews I get the german magazines like DWJ or Visier.

 

[sturmruger]

I am kind of cheap so my wife and I usually go to Barnes and Noble and read the magazines for free. I do subscribe to a few of the NRA mags, but I am getting a little sick of the cookie cutter articles that most of the gun rags put out.