Motoring - Top Gear continues to buck the trend

 

LONDON - Top Gear Magazine is continuing to buck the motoring magazine sector's decline, with year-on-year circulation up 2.6% to 200,471 copies.

Motoring - Top Gear continues to buck the trend

However, newsstand sales of Top Gear were down about 9% period on period, and overseas sales of the magazine rose from 18,832 to 23,486, an increase of almost 25% in the period.

The BBC Worldwide-produced title is outselling its closest rival, Media Week owner Haymarket's What Car?, by more than 90,000 copies.

The latter, which sold 108,028 copies per month between January and June, saw circulation fall 1.2% year on year, although it rose 0.2% period on period.

The biggest casualty was Bauer Media's Car magazine, which fell 15.2% year on year to 68,126 despite a recent redesign, while Dennis' Auto Express fell 9.1% to 77,587.

Top Gear associate publisher Simon Carrington says: "Top Gear is on a huge high in the UK and is a massively popular brand across a lot of products. As a magazine, we have continued to invest, while other publishers pull back.

"Top Gear is more accessible as a car magazine to the bloke on the street and we pitch ourselves as a men's lifestyle title, because we're a valid alternative to men's magazines."

Vanessa Clifford, head of press at MindShare, adds: "The thing with Top Gear is that it's all about brand. The TV programme is going from strength to strength. Top Gear magazine kind of sits apart from the car sector - it's a men's lifestyle mag about cars."

Elsewhere, Dennis' Evo, which increased circulation 2.8% year on year in the previous ABCs, fell 3.4%.

Top eight motoring magazines

MagazineCirculation Jan-June 08Prd/prd % changeYr/yr % change
BBC Top Gear (BBC Worldwide)200,4710.10%2.60%
What Car? (Haymarket)108,0280.20%-1.20%
Auto Express (Dennis)77,587-5.10%-9.10%
Classic Sports Car (Haymarket)76,508-5.50%-6.60%
Evo (Dennis)74,201-4.40%-3.40%
Car (Bauer Media)68,126-9.20%-15.20%
Practical Classics and Car Restorer (Bauer Media)59,011-1.10%-1.70%
Autocar (Haymarket)58,091-4.00%-2.20%
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