Magazines: Men's Health - Audience

Our first Magazine Close-Study Product is Men's Health.

We need to study both the target audience for Men's Health and the audience pleasures that readers get from the magazine.

Notes from the lesson

Men’s Health (UK edition) has a circulation of around 100,000 (down 16% year-on-year and including 40k free copies) and a readership of closer to 1 million. It began as a health magazine in the USA in 1986 and has gradually evolved into a men’s lifestyle magazine. The UK edition launched in 1995.

Definitions
Circulation is the actual number of copies printed and distributed. Readership is an estimate of how many people read the magazine in total (also known as readers-per-copy). For Men’s Health, copies in a gym or waiting room will be read by many different  people.

Circulation figures are provided by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) and readership estimates by the National Readership Survey (NRS).

Demographics: Social class

Men’s Health has a largely middle class readership but also attracts readers in the C2DE bracket:

ABC1 men: 64%
AB men: 32% 
C2DE: 36%

It is significantly higher than rivals GQ and Esquire in terms of circulation and readership but GQ and Esquire have a more upmarket demographics (higher % of ABC1 and AB readers).

Psychographics

Men’s Health Media Pack focuses on products that reflect a certain lifestyle such as fashion, watches, grooming, fitness and cars. This would suggest targeting the Aspirer and Succeeder psychographic groups with perhaps elements of Mainstreamers and Explorers.

Audience pleasures

There are many potential audience pleasures for Men’s Health readers. Applying Blumler & Katz’s Uses & Gratifications theory, two in particular would be:

Personal identity: Readers enjoy having their lifestyle reflected and endorsed through reading the magazine

Surveillance: Men’s Health is heavily focused on self-improvement and learning how to live a healthier, more successful life: “When it comes to life goals, claim the hat trick”.

Men's Health - Audience blog tasks

Read the Men's Health Media Pack in full to get a good idea of the demographics and psychographics for the Men's Health target audience then answer the following questions with short answers or bullet points:

1) How does the magazine introduce itself?

2) What does the introduction suggest about the representation of masculinity in Men's Health's?

3) What is the difference between circulation and readership?

4) What was the circulation of Men's Health in thousands at the time this Media Pack was published? Can you find an up-to-date circulation figure for Men's Health? How much has it fallen?

5) How do readers generally interact with the digital version of the magazine?

6) How many people do Men's Health reach across social media platforms?

7) What is the audience profile for Men's Health readers? 

8) What is the Men's Health fashion philosophy? How much do Men's Health readers collectively spend on fashion?

9) What percentage of Men's Health readers use moisturiser daily? What does this suggest about Men's Health readers' view of masculinity?

10) What audience pleasures are offered by the magazine?

11) What lifestyle and job would you expect the average Men's Health reader to have?

12) Why do you think Men's Health has managed to remain in business when many other magazines have struggled due to the rise of digital media?

Due date on Google Classroom