• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, May 23, 2011

While the trend was hardly universal, a number of major magazines saw their print audiences decrease between spring 2010 and spring 2011, according to Mediamark Research and Intelligence. The drops were particularly pronounced in specific categories, including automobile and celebrity titles.

For 100 leading consumer magazine titles, the total average audience measured by MRI fell from 916,933,000 in spring 2010 to 894,091,000 in spring 2011, for an overall drop of 2.5%.

Turning to specific categories and titles, automotive saw some of the biggest declines, as Automobile's audience fell 21% from 4.6 million in spring 2010 to 3.63 million in spring 2011; Car and Driver fell 7.7% from 10.99 million to 10.14 million; Motor Trend fell 12% from 8.03 million to 7.06 million; and Popular Mechanics fell 12.5% from 8.8 million to 7.7 million.

Among celebrity and fashion titles, In Style slipped 6.1% from 10.92 million to 10.25 million; In Touch Weekly fell 8.5% from 8.34 million to 7.63 million; Life & Style Weekly fell 11% from 5.46 million to 4.88 million; and Us Weekly was off 5% from 13.99 million to 13.3 million.

In the bridal category, Brides fell 18% from 6.2 million to 5.08 million.

Newsweeklies continued to lose audience, with Newsweek down 12.8% from 15.24 million to 13.29 million, and Time slipping 4.1% from 19.74 million to 18.93 million. Among general interest titles, Reader's Digest fell 11.6% from 29.46 million to 26.05 million. In men's interest titles, Maxim fell 10.3% from 12.6 million to 11.3 million.

A number of magazines experienced increases, although most were fairly modest. Some of the biggest percentage increases were seen at Entrepreneur, which jumped 34% from 2.5 million to 3.36 million, and Every Day with Rachael Ray, which increased 15% from 6.41 million to 7.39 million.