Women's magazines distribution falling - Marie-Claire

[VictoriaSpongeAndTea]

I used to buy lots of magazines, particularly Marie-Claire and Grazia. I've stopped buying any that focus on transwomen rather than women as they just weren't relevant, or in Grazia's just insulting with article by the person who felt women were doing feminism wrong (name escapes me at the moment)

So I have slightly mixed feelings about Marie Claire stopping UK print magazine after November www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49651603 In the past they covered stories impacting women that no one else did and covered some real ground breaking stories but they went down the poor oppressed tw route without doing proper journalism so I'd long since stopped buying even the occasional copy.
They are continuing digital subscription so maybe it's just general market trends.

[Herocomplex]

One of my earliest Cosmo memories was ‘Why Women Raise Their Sons to be Bastards’. I’d love to read that article again, I’d never heard about the patriarchy then.

[WineIsMyCarb]

agree @babdoc - I used to enjoy Grazia, as it's aimed at 'women like me' (professional, AB1, urban/town lifestyle etc) but just a narrow political focus on anything current affairs-y and everything else was the fluffy 'look nice' shit.

[Babdoc]

The only women’s mag I ever considered worth reading was Spare Rib, back in the 70’s. Uncompromisingly radical feminist. Brill.
All the rest seem to be propaganda for the patriarchy- “Concentrate on your make up and fashion, try to please men, look pretty, and don’t bother your fluffy little heads about politics, science or anything serious”.

[Herocomplex]

I agree with all your points Wine, especially the weekend papers.

[WineIsMyCarb]

Also stopped buying 'women's magazines' 8-10 years ago. I like fashion and beauty content but get it from the Sunday supplements (across the political spectrum). The articles in the women's glossies seemed purile and over-simply written. They didn't seem to flush out any interesting women's stories, they just seemed to be a columnist's article about how their husband doesn't do the holiday packing, or that she didn't feel very confident at work. Didn't really offer me much to be honest and had a very limited idea of what women might be interested in. As PPs have said, women probably read mumsnet, hobby magazines, online fashion content etc.
I bought GQ yesterday. Wanted to read the extensive James Corden interview, not because he interests me particularly, but it was a 4-5 page spread looking at his career and the late night tv show he does and I thought that would be interesting. Where is the 5 page spread looking at another woman's career in marie Claire? It's all 'how does she do it' shit - snore.
Also the interviews are interesting - 'out to lunch with' obviously involved going out for a couple of hours with the interviewee and having a conversation. Again,, the result was more interesting.
I believe GQ came back from the brink a few years ago - women's glossies should consider its model.

[Herocomplex]

Yes the Christmas edition of Country Living is always bought. Very seductive images that I long to achieve.

[ChardonnaysDistantCousin]

I still buy Country Living, despite, (or probably because) living in London.

They always have good gardening articles, environment issues, and they write about women who have businesses built up on a basis of more than mumpreneurial boredom backed by a hedge fund manager husband.

Also, there's the escapism.

[Doobigetta]

In my 20s I’d buy at least two or three magazines every month- Cosmo, Marie Claire, New Woman. But they eventually got so repetitive- the same style and beauty advice doled out every year on a rolling cycle. I knew what each article was going to say before I read it. It really was the phone-it-in journalism they parodied with Patsy’s job on Ab Fab. They deserve to go bust with that little effort.

[Herocomplex]

I learned so much about life from my friends mums Woman, Woman’s Own and Family Circle when I was a young teen. My mum never bought them, I don’t think she had the money.
I used to treat magazines like a holy grail, hoping I could sort my life out with their help. Cosmo in the 80s, Marie Claire in the 90’s. Then Good Housekeeping and Country Living.
Then I just stopped. If I pick one up now it’s like there’s nothing in it, it’s just meaningless to me.

[AuntieMarys]

I read Cosmopolitan in the 1970s....stopped reading magazines about 2000 .

[HelenaDove]

"I cancelled my Vogue subscription after they hired Paris Lees to speak for women and pushed teens towards anal with clitoris free diagram"

[CherryForFirstMinister]

I cancelled my Vogue subscription after they hired Paris Lees to speak for women and pushed teens towards anal with clitoris free diagram. They ignored my letter of complaint completely and continue sending me emails of drivel.

UK Vogue used to be high fashion and a bit of the surreal - like wandering around an art gallery. Now it reads and looks like a badly put together trawl of social media, real tasteless barrel scraping illiterate crap.

[pikapikachu]

Dd is 16 and never read a women's magazine. Her friends are the same. Social Media has all of the celeb gossip and fashion inspiration immediately after it happens rather than weeks later.

I haven't bought a magazine for years either. The Internet has free recipes, shops, celeb gossip, articles which makes them redundant. I will pick one up at the Doctor's but that's it really.

[Sarcelle]

I used to love magazines. From teenage onwards I read them all, pure escapism. They never made me feel bad about myself, I just liked the look into other worlds. The glossiness of them, the glamour! The photographs in far flung places...

Some of the ones I liked the most ended - She, New Woman, Eve.

Never really took to Vogue, Tatler or Harpers, just too far removed from my life.

My magazine obsession has dwindled to three a month on subscription - Red, Woman & Home and Good Housekeeping. The subscriptions run out in January and I won't be renewing. I feel like I am saturated with content online and hard copy and I cannot be bothered anymore. I skim read them these days, so no point in buying them. I am no longer impressed by fashion, or beauty advice. Sometimes I read Change Your Life articles in Woman & Home or Good Housekeeping, about some woman in late life who has opened a business and I get suckered in, thinking I could do that! About a 1/4 way through the articles it mentions they sold their second home in the Dordogne to fund the business, or their DH is a CEO somewhere, so the articles are not relevant to the everyday woman because most don't have access to those type of funds. That is the only time that magazines make me feel a bit shit about myself.

I no longer buy newspapers, although I sometimes get a free one if I spend enough money in a supermarket.

I won't miss magazines if they go.

[HelenaDove]

There was a fortnightly magazine called Real which was running in the early 2000s which was quite good.

[2Rebecca]

My husband and I still buy print magazines. We both get sports related magazine delivered and I get the Spectator which I think is also doing well. That has few adverts. I think the female glossies just got silly with the number of adverts and seemed a waste of paper environmentally. I'd much rather have a thin magazine with stuff I want to read. My son buys no magazines

[user1497863568]

I haven't bought one for ages. I occasionally buy the September issue of US Vogue. They are usually just full of advertisements for things I usually can't afford and wouldn't spend that kind of money on if I could.

[Goosefoot]

Yes, I am not convinced the rise of internet content is better. When I was of an age to read those magazines we were at least aware that they depicted a sort of fantasy, that the photographs were not realistic and weren't really meant to be. Adbusters was passed around schools. Now its all influencers who follow no journalistic ethics, don't care in the least about conflict of interest, and even other regular kids are presenting heavily retouched images of their daily lives.

[HelenaDove]

www.pressgazette.co.uk/womens-mags-abcs-cosmopolitan-sees-biggest-circulation-fall-full-figures/

[HelenaDove]

Private Eye have been doing proper expose on some of the housing associations. At least twice in the last three months.

[BlackForestCake]

Private Eye is doing well precisely because it has not done what other publications have done: cut back on journalism to save costs. People are still prepared to pay for properly researched, fearless journalism. There is not much of that about in the mainstream press any more. They have got into a vicious circle: cut back on serious journalism -> paper becomes less interesting -> fewer readers bother to buy it -> sales and ad revenue drop -> need to cut costs further.

It is important to understand that the business model of most publications (other than Private Eye) is NOT selling you something you want to read. It is selling your attention to advertisers. That's where the money is (or was) made. The fiver or whatever you pay for a magazine only just about covers the cost of printing it.

[Floisme]

There were some really interesting bloggers around about 10 years ago, writing about all kinds of stuff. They weren’t in it to make money - they just had something they wanted to say. But then the PR industry cottoned on and that was that. I think the reason printed magazines (and all printed journalism) is in decline isn’t just falling readership, it’s because advertisers are removing their custom too. Why pay all that money on a big spread when you can throw someone a free outfit and get them to wear it on Instragram? Ok it might be slightly more sophisticated than that but not much. It makes magazines look positively innocent. I will miss them.

[ChardonnaysDistantCousin]

I haven’t bought a women’s glossy for years.

I used to buy Vogue, but that became very “woke” for want of a better word, I still get Harper’s but that just fashion, and I get the occasional House and something.

I stopped reading Red when they stated featuring influencers on their beauty pages. If I wanted to see that I could as well click on their Instagram. Lazy.

[Bananalanacake]

what happened to B magazine. I used to like that one.

[MoltoAgitato]

Too much of women’s magazines content is available online for free, and I do think the more serious articles that occasionally popped up in those magazines are no longer being written as a result. I don’t know where that writing has gone - blogging won’t pay for it, and I doubt even the more serious newspapers will pay well for features these days. The lifetime of an article has also drastically contracted - who’s going to wait a month for new content when you can get it every day?

I only buy one magazine now and that’s for a niche hobby which doesn’t have much good writing online.