SA's top money-making mags at retail

ABCs are normally used to rank magazines in terms of which titles sell the most copies. But there's another analysis of that data which calculates revenue through tills, called Retail Sales Value (RSV). The RSV formula multiplies a magazine's audited ABC circulation sale X number of issues published per annum X cover price.

"RSV is a business information tool much in use by international magazine publishers," says Mark Beard, Associate Publisher at UCM (publishers of FHM and heat). Beard says RSV provides "critical insights into the importance of particular titles at retail level as it indicates market intelligence about the financial strength of the various publishing houses".

Extrapolated from ABC July - Dec 2004, RSVs are calculated not on total ABC figures, but rather on single copy sales at full cover price. "This is a more accurate RSV figure for SA retailers as it excludes subscriptions, bulks and overseas copies," explains Beard.

Amongst the findings of the latest RSV analysis, the figures show that FHM (ABC July - Dec 2004: 118 428) is actually the 4th biggest revenue generator for retailers in SA and heat (ABC July - Dec 2004: 47 358) the 5th biggest. FHM's performance is significant in that it is the only monthly magazine in the top five.

"FHM generates more revenue for SA retailers than both other titles, GQ and Men's Health, in the Men's Lifestyle category put together!" says Beard.

Regarding heat, the magazine is the 5th biggest revenue generator for retailers "and this within a year of launch", enthuses Beard. "heat generates more revenue for SA retailers than Cosmopolitan and all other female monthlies. And in comparison to the two other big magazine launches of last year, heat generates more revenue per annum than Glamour and Top Billing combined."