Private Eye

Private Eye: top performer in news and current affairs sector

Credit: Image by Jem Stone on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Satirical fortnightly news magazine Private Eye has celebrated its 50th anniversary with a 10 per cent year-on-year circulation rise.

New figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, published today, give Private Eye an average circulation of 228,112 in the last half of 2011, up 10.1 per cent from 207,154 in the same period in 2010. Some 99 per cent of copies were actively purchased.

News and current affairs magazines as a whole reported a 12.3 per cent circulation rise year on year. The second biggest title in the sector, The Week, rose 3.9 per cent year on year to 187,536.

The Spectator saw the biggest decline in the sector, down 9.6 per cent year on year at 63,543.

Other magazine sectors to report circulation growth in the second half of last year include teenage lifestyle (up 28 per cent), pre-school (up 10 per cent) and women's slimming (up 6.8 per cent).

Periodical Publishers Association chief executive Barry McIlheney said in a release: "Magazines yet again demonstrate their worth in the eyes of consumers and advertisers in this latest set of circulation figures from ABC."

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