Where do you place your Country magazines?

I place Country titles with Home and Living titles – in fact, at the start of this section and next to our popular UK and TV magazines section. This prime placement makes sense to me. That said, I know of plenty of newsagents who think they are better situated with Craft magazines.

Our own sales of Country titles are up by more than 10%. This tells me our placement strategy is right.

I was talking with Mark Darton, Circulation Director of Universal Magazines about this recently and this is some of what he had to say:

The Country genre sits in the” home” category and the latest ABC  audit figures highlight the year on year growth of the other competitor titles in the category. Below is an excerpt from Network Services Audit analysis as always it’s important to look at the numbers as well as the % change by title. By way of comparison we have seen a similar growth but aligned to the issues under the new editor.

The message to newsagents is the Country titles should be displayed in the home category and not Craft. Grouped together and they can compete from there. This sub category is in growth and worth some attention to capitalise on that growth.

Universal is investing in this category as we expect it to be strong over the next 12 months.

In the latest circulation audit, home declined by -1% but this masks what was actually a good period for the category. Country Home Ideas (+13%) was the third fastest growing title in the Audit, whilst Belle (+6%), Aust Home Beautiful (+5%), Real Living (+5%), Aust House & Garden (+4%), and Country Style (+3%) also recorded gains.  Three titles recorded a loss in sales; Aust Handyman (-19%), Inside Out (-10%) and Vogue Living (-1%).  Better Homes & Gardens remains the category leader with total sales of 378,048 (a fall of 2% this Audit).

Click here to see a sales alert from Universal Magazines about Australian Country Collections.