2015 saw a 15.8 percent year-over-year decline in the number of magazines sold on North American newsstands, according to data released today by MagNet, corresponding to a 13 percent drop in industry-wide newsstand revenue.
The year-over-year declines in Q4 were actually a slight improvement over those observed earlier in the year, but still represented a 7.6 percent revenue dip compared to the same period in 2014. Overall, annual newsstand revenues dropped under $2.5 billion for the first time in at least a decade.
Sell-through efficiency—the percentage of copies produced that are actually sold—also took a hit, dropping from 29.9 percent in 2014 to 26.4 percent last year, a troubling trend for publishers as sales declines continue to outpace slowdowns in production. Total circulation appeared to have little effect on sell-through efficiency, with the top ten titles achieving only a slightly better rate of 27.5 percent.
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