By SIMON HENDERY
What's hot? Gardening, cooking and fishing. What's not? Hollywood gossip and an Auckland focus.
Latest magazine sales and readership figures show celebrity-laden women's magazines are continuing to turn off readers.
Combined sales of the three most popular weekly women's titles fell 15 per cent, or 54,000 copies, last year.
Combined sales of the heavyweights - New Idea, Woman's Day and NZ Woman's Weekly - have dropped almost a quarter in four years, from 383,000 to 295,000.
The New Zealand edition of the Australian Women's Weekly (which despite its title is published monthly) had a circulation drop of almost 1300 to 72,500.
The executive director of the Magazine Publishers' Association, John McClintock, said that while the appetite for celebrity news remained strong, television and other media had muscled into this sector of the market, traditionally dominated by magazines.
"The domain of the hot whispers and the inside info is now open slather."
NZ Woman's Weekly publisher and chief executive Wendy Bloxham said she was delighted the weekly had held its readership in a tough market of the past 12 months.
The magazine's readership (857,000) and was still well ahead of its nearest competitor, Woman's Day (773,000) and was being passed on more widely among family and friends, she said.
Auckland-centred Metro magazine's monthly circulation fell 13 per cent to 16,500 and is down a third over the past four years.
Thinking women's magazine Grace, which closed in December because of flat sales, had a circulation of more than 20,000.
Perennial current affairs and television weekly the Listener fell 9 per cent during the year to 81,000.
The circulation of Metro's sister publication, North & South, was up 200 to just over 37,000.
Mr McClintock said that some titles were suffering, but overall magazine readership was steady.
The Audit Bureau of Circulation figures, and separate ACNielsen readership figures, also showed readership and circulation of home and gardening, motoring and sports titles - especially fishing magazines - was up.
Among other titles which improved sales over the past 12 months were Sky TV's SkyWatch guide (up 8 per cent to 332,000) and internet magazine NetGuide (up 9 per cent to 32,000).
Those to fall included TV Guide (down 8 per cent to 231,000), Reader's Digest (down 2 per cent to 115,000), and Little Treasures (down 11 per cent to 54,000).
Hot gossip loses its thrill for magazine buyers
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