I’m helping a newsagent chase down a cash-flow problem and have identified porn magazines as part of the cause. Titles such as Club International, Exotic Asian Pack, Playboy, Men Only, Weird Sex Letters and Best of Readers Wives are cash-flow negative for as far back as I can see.
Blind freddy knows that the printed porn market is in rapid decline, everyone it would seem except the publishers and distributors who use the low/no cost newsagent network to promote their brands.
I’m not a prude, far from it – these titles have to go. The data shows that newsagents are oversupplied with porn titles. This same data is available to the magazine distributors. There is no justification for the quantity or range currently supplied to all but a few newsagencies.
The flip side of the cash-flow work for the newsagent I am working with the extraordinary contribution of the major titles: Woman’s Day, New Idea, Better Homes and Gardens, NW, Australian Women’s Weekly, Who, TV Week. This is where is makes his money on magazines yet it is the non top sellers which drain labour, real-estate and cash.