• by Michael Shields , November 23, 2004

Ducks Unlimited has perhaps the biggest reason to quack in the consumer magazine space.

According to the Fall 2004 Mediamark Research (MRI) numbers released last week, Ducks saw the largest increase in audience size over the past year on a percentage basis among measured magazines, as its audience soared by 46 percent, to over 3 million readers.

That is just one of a number of interesting facts and noteworthy tidbits garnered from comparing this fall's and last fall's MRI audience data.

For one thing, there is a lot of movement in these numbers from year to year: 69 different titles showed a percentage increase or decrease of more than 10 percent year-over-year, after 66 titles exhibited such a change as of Fall 2003.

Does that indicate that these audience figures are unstable? Or that magazine readers are fickle, jumping from title to title each year? Not really, according to MRI, which says this trend is not unusual (a similar number of titles displayed the same shifts in the last two Spring releases).

"I would say there's nothing unusual here," said Anne Marie Kelly, MRI's vice president of marketing and strategic planning. "The number of titles showing this swing is not unusual, and very few are statistically significant."

Furthermore, more titles in this new survey were up than down, possibly indicating a growing strength in magazine readership in general. Yet according to Kelly, this is a typical year. "Over the past five years, magazine readership as a percentage of the adult population has been fairly consistent," she said.

Of course, MRI data is not the same as circulation figures, and has more variables (such as readers per copy) that can affect audience numbers year to year.

Plus, percentage increases can be deceiving: a smaller magazine that experiences a minor increase in readers can show a large jump.

Yet in addition to the number of titles growing or shrinking, a deeper look at this fall's data yields some other interesting trends:

-Midwest Living and Coastal Living each saw major increases in audience--of 45 and 41 percent, respectively--pushing each over the 4-million-reader mark.

-Pure smut is making a comeback, as the once left-for-dead Penthouse saw a 28 percent increase in audience. Tamer Playboy was also up by 9 percent.

-In the non-nudity babes-centric men's category, FHM saw a huge boost (+21 percent), while the larger Maxim continued to grow (+3 percent), and even Stuff bucked its newsstand anemia, growing by 15 percent.

-Not surprisingly, US Weekly (+22 percent) and Star (+24 percent) each added readers at a healthy clip, as the celebrity gossip category remains red hot. Real Simple also continues its stellar growth, increasing its already substantial audience (4.5 million readers) by an eye-opening 25 percent

-The PC market appears to be hurting: Computer Shopper and PC World each dropped by 20 percent, while PC Magazine slid by 11 percent

-Out of the woods and into the water: while American Hunter lost 20 percent of its audience, Salt Water Sportsman grew by a whopping 35 percent.

-Off the slopes: Ski and Skiing are both down 13 percent.

-Some of the largest and oldest magazines (20 million plus readers) are demonstrating encouraging audience stability: Better Homes and Gardens (-.79 percent), Woman's Day (+.60 percent), Reader's Digest (-1.56 percent), Good Housekeeping (+1.54 percent), and Sports Illustrated (-.35 percent) were all for the most part flat versus last year. The venerable National Geographic was actually up 4 percent, to over 31 million readers.

-A handful of gaming titles that weren't measured last year are registering a significant readership: -Official U.S. PlayStation magazine, 4.3 million readers -Official Xbox Magazine, 3.7 million -PSM: PlayStation 2 Magazine, 3.3 million