Playboy Sheds Circulation: Top Half of 2009 a Bust for Periodicals

Image by New York Public Library via Flickr

TV Guide lost 10 percent of its readers, and Playboy was close behind, shedding 9.2 percent of its circulation in the first six months of 2009, compared to first-half figures a year ago, leading the bruised magazine industry, which overall experienced a 1.2 percent decline in circulation, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC).

ABC reported that for the first half of 2009, grocery store and newsstand sales of magazines plunged from 41.4 million copies in 2008 to 36.3 million copies in 2009, a 12 percent decrease. Combined circulation for 521 consumer magazines went from 343.7 million copies sold in the first half of 2008 to 339.6 million for the comparable period in 2009, according to the ABC.  Meanwhile, ad sales declined by 21 percent at major domestic periodicals in the first half of 2009.

If this keeps up,  newsstand hawkers, the principal suppliers of information to fictional private eyes since Hollywood started making talkies, will become extinct.