Vogue Readership/Circulation

So for a long time I thought to do a post about Vogue readership and circulation figures. Wouldn't it be interesting how the figures have dropped or risen with the digital age? 

Perhaps its my inner geek talking but I found it very fascinating idea. The initial idea was to compare the readership and circulation figures from the 1960's or 1970's with today's figures. As it turned out it was hard to obtain figures that were older then 3 years. I failed in that searched but I did find figures from 2006 when the iPad was still not released and Twitter didn't exist and Facebook was something that mainly college students used. My main goal will be the circulation figures since there is more information on that. 

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So these are the figures from 2006 (Vogue is outlined with red brackets). It can be seen that already then, the numbers were rising. One of the reason was perhaps the Vogues Official Website that boosted its popularity or perhaps that it was the golden time after the 90's and at that time the economy was growing and there were no signs of recession. 

These are the circulation figures of 2012 (January - June). It can be seen that the figures have gone down but on the other hand there are the digital circulation figures. Honestly I don't understand the digital circulation figures because I believe its hard to track. One person has the app and that's it. How can anyone find out how many people read that digital copy. 

The low figures could be blamed on the economy. As we all know the economy is in a bad place right now, so some people might choose to cut down on magazines. There is also the chance that the figures are lower then in 2006 because of the digital age. People are always talking bout how the print media might become extinct because of the digital revolution. The editors try to re-assure us that the print versions of their publications will always exist but the figures are painting a gloomy picture. Perhaps it is because the magazines are still trying to adjust to the digital age and all of the social,- and information platforms that have been created in the process. 

But at least Vogue is still going strong compared to some other fashion magazines. 

In terms of fashion titles, British Vogue fell 0.2 percent in the six months to December, compared to the same period last year, to 210,806, while Hearst’s Elle declined 2.7 percent to 195,020 year-on-year.

(Source: http://www.wwd.com/media-news/fashion-memopad/uk-titles-post-slow-growing-abcs-5704950) 

As you can see there other factors that might have influenced the readership/circulation figures. I believe it a bit hard to correctly analyse the figures because of those factors and we just need to wait for the economy to start improving and the magazines to figure out their place in the digital age and only then could we look at the figures and have a correct portrait of the situation. Until then we can only wait and hope that print copies of magazines will still have  the same relevance as they do now.