IRS 2008 R2: English magazines witness a decline

English magazines have registered a decline in readership as per the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2008 Round 2 data. However, there are few genres among English magazines such as women's, general interest and travel-based magazines, where at least one or two players have seen an increase in average issue readership (AIR).

Women's magazine New Women is one that has seen a growth in readership, from 58,000 to 76,000, an increase of 18,000. General interest magazines such as Newsweek and Sahara Time have also witnessed growth – from 15,000 to 31,000 in the case of Newsweek, and from 35,000 to 52,000 thousand for Sahara Time. Travel magazine Outlook Traveller also increased its readership by 2,000, from 143,000 to 145,000.

However, other magazines in women's genre have shown a declining trend. The average issue readership (AIR) numbers for Femina declined by -11.29 per cent, Femina Girl by -25.29 per cent, Woman's Era by -23.36 per cent, Cosmopolitan by -38.89 per cent, Elle by -2.63 per cent and Savvy by -17.86 per cent.

In the general interest genre, too, there has been a declining trend - Frontline has dropped by -20.32 per cent, India Today by -10.87 per cent, Outlook by -13.96 per cent, The Week by -24.66 per cent, Time by -42.71 per cent, and Readers Digest by -14.99 per cent. Likewise, the AIR of India Today Travel Plus has also gone down by -26.51 per cent.

AIR numbers for automobile magazines such as Auto Car, Auto India and Overdrive, too, have plummeted by -17.76 per cent, -16.33 per cent and -33.57 per cent, respectively. Flim-based magazines like Stardust and Cine Blitz haven't escaped the decline trend either, both dropping by -20.22 per cent and -53.91 per cent, respectively.

Similarly, the other genres like lifestyle, entertainment, technology, health, sports, children's and competitive magazines also show declining trends.

See complete table below