Closer continues to build circulation in thriving celebrity sector

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 18-Aug-05, 13:15

LONDON - Emap's celebrity weekly Closer has continued to build its circulation with a 7.1% increase in sales over the last six months, compared with the 4.4% decline recorded by market leader Now for the same period.

IPC Media's Now was shifting 619,186 copies in the previous July-December 2004 period, but is down 4.4% to 591,795, according to the latest ABC figures.

Closer put on almost 36,000 copies to reach 540,044, compared with 504,350 in the second half of 2004. It is now within 21,000 copies of its Emap stablemate Heat, which climbed 1.5% from 552,215 to 560,438.

Closer's rise sees it surpass Northern & Shell's celebrity title OK!, which increased by 0.6% to 532,843 over the six-month period.

The newest entrant, Reveal, which was launched by ACP-NatMags in October 2004, grew 13.9% from 239,907 to 273,159. However, it still as a long way to catch up to its nearest rival, Northern & Shell's New!, which was down 5.8% to 373,039, and Hello!, which is up 2.6% to 392,481.

Northern & Shell's Star is bottom of the celebrity market with a 13.8% fall to 182,393. Grazia, Emap's new weekly fashion title featuring A-list celebrity stories, debuted at 155,157 copies.

In the real-life sector of women's weeklies, IPC's January launch Pick Me Up grabbed the spotlight with a debut ABC of 503,950, while Hubert Burda Media's March launch Full House shunned attention by not posting a figure, although it is believed to sell around 160,000 copies.

Any waves made by Pick Me Up only slightly affected H Bauer's runaway market leader Take a Break. It was down 1.8% to 1,200,397 period on period.

However, it appears to have had a more negative impact on all the other real-life titles. IPC's second-placed Chat fell 4.3% to 609,163 and third-placed Bauer's That's Life fell 5.3% to 569,631.

Pick Me Up came fourth ahead of other sinking IPC titles. Woman was down by 8% to 485,463; Woman's Weekly by 4.9% to 425,568; and Woman's Own by 5.6% to 424,292.

The National Magazine Company's Best was down 3.1% to 398,289, ahead of Bauer's Bella, down 9.1% to 389,100.

DC Thompson titles People's Friend and My Weekly were also down, the former by 2.4% to 363,638 and the latter by 7.5% to 225,914.

Pick Me Up's impact is set to be followed by another real-life launch in September. ACP-NatMags is to enter the sector with a title called Real People.

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