It was not until 1962 that American magazines were obliged, by law, to carry a Statement of Management and Circulation. This applied to all magazines that carried advertising and appeared four or more times a year. Publication of this data was a requirement of the magazine being allowed a second–class mailing permit from the postal authorities, but it also allowed advertisers to know the size of the potential readership, and the magazine could charge rates accordingly. As a consequence, the data appeared regularly, though there are a few occasions, usually with the change of publisher, where data was either not published or where figures are repeated. All of the figures below are taken from the Statements as printed in the individual magazines.

The data take two forms. The magazine was required to publish (1) the average paid circulation per issue over the preceding twelve months and (2) the circulation of the issue published prior to the time of filing. In both cases the data was broken down under several headings: (a) the total number of copies printed, (b) the number sold through news–stands and other dealers, (c) the number sold by subscription and (d) the number lost or wasted. In the chart below I provide the yearly average sales figures, which is the total of (b) plus (c) above and I show next to that the proportion of sales as a percentage of the print run (known as the ‘sell through’), and the percentage of total sales sold via news–stands etc. (figure b). A general rule of thumb is that if the sell through is above 40 per cent then the magazine is likely to be in profit, or reasonably healthy.

The report is usually filed on 1 October, but sales figures can take up to three or four months to filter through. Consequently the yearly average is not a straight calendar year but is probably summer to summer. The years are thus shown as combined years.

Because this is the first time that these figures have been available I include below the earliest figures from 1962/63 and take them through to 1980/81.