Due to recent problems and significant changes the UK consumer magazine industry has shifted to a more online audience as a consequence of not only the advancement in technology but also the Covid-19 pandemic which accelerated this process, flushing out the print magazines circulations and titles further, allowing for social media to dominate over the consumer magazine industry.
In 2000, 1.6 billion magazines were circulated in the UK however this figure drastically dropped to 565 million in recent years which is almost a 1 billion decrease over the past 20 years this is a consequence of the pandemic and the uprising of social media driving out print magazines and causing an impact on consumer titles as there was more than 700 consumer titles reported to ABC in 2000 to 558 in 2010 and this decreases further to 241 in the last year. The biggest impact of this change was social media with the creation of Instagram and other social media platforms offering a cheaper substitute to print magazines so many consumer magazines transitioned online in order to reduce costs of making print magazines. Not only has the circulation significantly decreased but also the expenditure has decreased from 1.4 billion to 669 million in recent years. Not all the verticals suffered the same as the men's magazine and music magazines have been impacted the most as they decreased by almost 90% from 32.3 million to 3.6 million and music magazines fell to 1.8% whilst women's magazines which wasn't as heavily impacted falling by only 45%.
