British Comic Sales

I haven’t updated the downthetubes page offering some information on UK comic sales in a while, but while doing some research this morning I made a quick check of the ABC data for various titles and was pleasantly surprised to discover the Beano and the Dandy now feature -- but sales of The Dandy are a shock.

Simpsons Comics, Doctor Who Adventures and In the Night Garden are among the best-selling titles.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations website provides free access to the circulation, distribution and attendance data for ABC certified Magazines, Newspapers, Exhibitions and Directories within the UK and Republic of Ireland.

Not every magazine is ABC rated, so several titles do not feature in the quick list below.

The data covers the period 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2007. The figure listed is I believe the average sale per issue.

Humour
The Beano (DC Thomson): 74,419
The BeanoMAX (DC Thomson): 51,431
The Dandy (DC Thomson): 28,550
Toxic (Egmont): 54,049
The Simpsons Comics (Titan): 133,086
Simpsons Comics Presents (Titan): 90,005
Spongebob Squarepants (Titan): 45,297

Adventure
Doctor Who Adventures Magazine (BBC): 154,989
Power Rangers (Egmont): 52,588
Spectacular Spiderman (Panini): 45,595
Transformers Comic (Titan): 45,092

Taken as a whole unit the "DC Thomson Children's Entertainment Package (Boys)", which might include Commando, would appear to sell an average 154,400 copies per month

Junior
Disney and Me (Egmont): 46,638
Scooby Doo (Panini): 54,167

Girls
Animals and You (DC Thomson) 38,441
Barbie (Egmont): 55,018
Bratz (DC Thomson): 64,279
Disney Fairies (Egmont): 30,053
Disney's Princess (Egmont): 69,023

The "DC Thomson Children's Entertainment Package (Girls)" which includes Shout, etc., sold an average 131,272 copies per month.

Pre-School
Balamory (BBC): 36,555
Bob The Builder (BBC): 57,139
CBeebies Weekly (BBC): 65,179
Charlie & Lola (BBC): 54,937
Dora The Explorer (BBC): 54,000
Fireman Sam (BBC): 41,001
Fun to Learn - Friends (Redan): 84,340
Fun to Learn - Favourites (REdan): 55,344
In The Night Garden (BBC): 110,350
Lazy Town (Titan): 52,226
Noddy Magazine (Egmont): 30,044 - now published by Titan
Play and Learn - Thomas and Friends (Egmont): 40,386
Teletubbies (BBC): 42,895
Thomas and Friends (Egmont): 40,773
Toybox (BBC): 82,607
Tweenies (BBC): 32,909

Adult
Viz (Dennis) 88,165

While some comic sales are down, there's still plenty of life in the sector yet. Intriguingly, girls comics/magazines are still a popular buy if you get the mix right (girls comics always used to outsell boys, I'm told) and of course the pre-school sector continues to boom by most standards.

It's a shame not every title reveals its sales figures but this snapshot of the industry would seem to indicate continued health, for now.