Looking across magazine circ figures title-by-title for the second half of '09, it's hardly a surprise they suck. And those with the steepest overall circ declines (Reader's Digest, TV Guide, Prevention) also are no revelation, seeing that these mags' withered readership continues to drop like flies. (Notably bad performers at the newsstand, in particular, included Time and Newsweek, W and Good Housekeeping.) Meanwhile, a handful of relatively new titles that have caught on with consumers (Women's Health, People spinoff StyleWatch) continued to reap still more readers even in the last, horrible year. But, as always, there were a couple of surprises, as Media Decoder points out: namely that Bon Appetit's reader base seems to be emptying out like a restaurant after a rat was spotted enjoying a three-course prix fixe. The mag's newsstand sales really got torched, collapsing by more than 9% ... this, even after rival sister pub Gourmet got the shaft (the company says a bump in Bon App's circ will be reflected in '10 figures). But even taking Gourmet out of the equation: a near-double-digit falloff in single-copy sales doesn't speak so highly of the vibrancy of a brand, does it Si? (We can't imagine what's keeping readers from snapping up a mag that delights in putting autopsies and abortions on its cover month after month.)
