General magazines ranked by monthly reach in the United Kingdom 2019-2020

Radio Times was the leading general magazine title in terms of overall reach in the United Kingdom from April 2019 to 2020. The radio and television guide had a combined online and print reach of around 11.8 million individuals, while Time Out magazine (timeout.com) reached approximately 2.9 million readers and viewers per month.

UK magazines are no longer flying off the shelves

The UK sales volume of printed magazines plummeted from 820 million magazines in 2011 to just below 374 million copies sold in 2018. In line with global industry trends, revenues from print magazine sales in the UK also dropped from over one billion British pounds to roughly 634 million GBP during the past decade, a development fueled by the prevalence of online news and entertainment channels. As audiences started to shift from print media to online platforms, the sales volume of the UK digital magazine market has recently increased by almost 50 percent.

Magazines are moving online

In order to combat readership loss and stay relevant in today’s digitalized world, many of the UK’s most popular magazine brands have moved online. In 2020, the share of individuals reading or downloading online news, newspapers, and magazines in the UK reached a record 70 percent, and according to the latest data, smartphones have become the leading platform for magazine consumption across the UK. Indicative of this ongoing shift towards mobile media consumption, Radio Times, Time Out, and many other general magazine brands had a higher audience reach on smartphones than on tablets, desktop, and print editions combined in 2020.