Good News from Anglers Mail

In these hard times of depressing recession, pay freezes - including here :-( ), lake freezes, floods, tackle shop closures etc I’d like to share some GOOD NEWS. Or at least it is good news for Angler’s Mail and friends.

I would also I’d like to thank you, on behalf of Angler’s Mail HQ, for helping us all achieve growth in actual sales and market share.

It’s been announced today in the industry’s independently audited ABC figures. (ABC stands for Audit Bureau of Circulations)

AM has been confirmed as achieving the best year-on-year sale performance in all IPC Media weeklies, second best y-o-y in the whole company behind fortnightly Soaplife (TV titles are apparently rising the recession quite nicely as people stay at home more).
We achieved +7% for Jan-Dec 2008.

IPC have 80 print titles in total. The best monthly here was +6.8% up y-o-y, overall.
A plus stat is amazing in the current world of mags. Some figures we monitor for all sorts of other titles (which don’t get made official) are shocking.

It’s only numbers, and I’m not a great one for stats, but the reality is we have all made loads more readers/people happy in 2008.... and that’s why most of us work in this industry.

If you are interested, the news today reveals some notable results.
AT +0.2% (They added in UK CARP mag subs, plus they gifted strongly in the second half of 2008)
Improve was –7.1% down.
Sea Angler -10.3% down
Trout and Salmon –4.2% down
Trout Fisherman –13.7% down

If you look at news-stand (ie excluding subscription copies and free copies) here are more facts:
Anglers Mail up +5.3% YoY UP
Angling Times down 0.8% YoY
IYCF down down YoY
Sea Angler down 13.5% yoY
Trout & Salmon down 8.7% YoY
Trout Fisherman down 15.9% YoY


Other fishing titles, I believe, won’t have published an ABC.
Like us at IPC, Bauer (formerly EMAP) get ABCs done, and good on ‘em for doing so.
ABCs are the only independent benchmark, carefully audited. Who knows what other mags have done...?!