Newsweek's year on the block and leadership limbo wasn’t just bad for the weekly’s ad pages and circulation—its audience also took a hit. The magazine—which also has deliberately cut its circulation in recent years—saw its adult readership drop 13.2 percent year over year, to 13.2 million, according to GfK MRI’s spring 2011 print audience report, which was released Monday.
Other magazines saw audience falloffs that corresponded with changes in circulation and format. Playboy was down 20.3 percent to 6.5 million (it also slashed its rate base to 1.5 million in 2010). Brides, which converted to a monthly in 2010 from bimonthly, saw its audience decline 18 percent to 5.1 million. Reader’s Digest, which also has cut its circulation, was down 11.5 percent to 26 million. OK! Weekly, which has had a revolving door of editors over the years, was off 10 percent to 6.6 million.
Some, though, had numbers to celebrate. That included Every Day With Rachael Ray, whose audience was up 15.2 percent to 7.4 million; More, up 11.1 percent to 2 million; Fortune, up 10.4 percent to 4.4 million; and Wired, up 10.3 percent to 3.2 million readers. And while People slipped slightly (1.8 percent), it still had the biggest audience of any magazine at 44.8 million.
