The Pluses and Minuses of Newsstand Magazine Sales

Magazines' Newsstand Struggles Continue, but Not Without Bright Spots. (Advertising Age, 2/4/2011)

Excerpt: But Rolling Stone's performance stood out among magazines, whose second half of 2010 seems to have primarily continued the industry's long, gradual decline in single-copy sales. Many publishers gave Ad Age a sneak peak at the figures they have filed with the Audit Bureau of Circulations in advance of its semiannual circulation report on Monday.

Magazine subscriptions and overall audiences usually grow or at least hold up from year to year, but their continued newsstand weakness is worrisome because advertisers consider single-copy sales a gauge of consumer demand while publishers use newsstands to attract potential subscribers.