So there I am, looking for something to read, ah cool, there’s a newsagent / supermarket / petrol station with a substantial number of shelves of magazines.
But then…wtf…there’s about 150+ womens’ / gossip magazines. Perhaps 100 everything else: mens’ mags, kids’ stuff, puzzles, running to relatively obscure stuff (you’d think) like carp monthly…and not a single science or current affairs magazine.
And then I try the next shop…and the next one… and they’re the same.
I am dubious that this is purely supply and demand. When I eventually find somewhere that sells e.g. the economist, there are often others purchasing this at the same time, or they are sold out say.
So what gives? Why is this retail approach so common? And considering they’re about 30p each, how on earth do all those 150+ womens’ mags manage to coexist and turn a profit?
MY WAG guess is that it is, indeed, merely supply and demand. Specialised subjects probably don’t sell at all well in the general market, so they tend to be subscription-based.
Yeah that would be my WAG too, but there are things there like fishing magazines that I would consider to be more specialized that a current affairs mag.
If it is just sales then fair enough (though I would be shocked). I was just wondering if it might be something like “OmniMega Corp has exclusive deals with most newsagents, and they don’t sell any science mags”.
A lot of people interested in science and/or politics are likely to get their info from the internet.
New Scientist is reasonably popular, but is either online or via subscription. Total Politics is probably the leading political magazine, but that’s also online and subscription (or centered around Westminster and Whitehall).
There are 1000s of bored women who’ll read Chat or Take A Break - the copy is cheap to produce (lots of “real life” stories which cost £50 a throw), and you can rehash celeb gossip.
For what it’s worth, I recall back in the late 1980’s making the same observation. If you look at magazine racks of the same size in stores in the U.S. and the U.K., the one if the U.S. will have slightly more magazines with some intellectual content like science or politics than the one in the U.K. Of course, neither my observations nor yours constitute an accurate sampling of magazine racks, so it’s possible that we’re both wrong about this, but I did notice the same thing you did.
I’m sure you’d have also seen lots of photography, computing, music, music creation and high end fashion magazines. But far too many rubbishy gossip mags in the UK - it’s really very unhealthy.
Most of the women’s mags have an incredibly high proportion of adverts/ ‘sponsored stories’, which is I presume how they can be that cheap.
I worked in a large chain newsagent for a while, and while we did stock a few science and technology magazines, IIRC the biggest sellers in order were ‘Men’s Health’, assorted women’s crap mags, fishing magazines, and porn (wasn’t much porn choice, which is probably why it was only No. 4). I used to read the women’s mags during breaks; I could feel my IQ dropping.
Also, a lot of the people who did buy the more serious magazines would have them on order so we would just have a few issues, mostly stored behind the counter, with only one on display.
It depends which shop you go to, most local newsagents and shops such as Tesco Express have a poor selection of magazines, just limited to the kind of titles they know they can shift off the shelf quickly. However even then though you’d usually expect to see copies of the New Scientist, Private Eye and the maybe the Spectator.
The best place to buy magazines is probably W H Smith, even at their smaller shops such as those on the platform at railway stations they tend to have a better choice than say Tesco express.
You will also find a lot of political and scientific content in the broadsheets. Pre internet I bought the Guardian every day to keep up iirc Thursday was the day they had a science and computer supplement (Monday was media, Tuesday teaching, Wednesday social science and Friday music and film, they carried specialist job adverts on those days too). There would also be science based news stories in the main paper and the daily G2 supplement. Every day was politics day of course.
Near to me there is a normal, non-express tesco and a tesco express. Neither have any of the magazines you’ve listed; the Tesco Normal has some “economist review of the year” thing (i.e. not the actual economist “newspaper”), and that’s it.
Of the other supermarkets near me Morrissons sells none of those either but sainsburys has all of them.
Surprising it’s so polarized like this.
My local Co-op, Tesco and Morrisons all carry Private Eye and New Scientist. The Tesco and Morrisons also carry New Statesman and Spectator. The nearest WH Smiths carries all of those, plus Total Politics and Scientific American (haven’t noticed that recently though). Occasionally the Smiths has The London Review of Books, although I suspect they only get a small number and I miss them more often than not. I can’t recall seeing The Economist in any of them though. These are all fairly small-town Scottish branches.
Well now I really feel deprived. Are you guys based in London?
I wouldn’t have started this thread if it was just a problem with my area. I’ve been in several relatively large town centres and been unable to find anywhere that sells science or politics magazines.
I’m in semi-rural Scotland. The supermarkets are in nearby small towns, the WH Smiths in a slightly larger one. Even the wee newsagent in the village gets Private Eye.
It’s because of the broadsheet newspapers. Any newsagent you walk into will probably stock The Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian, the Independent and the Financial Times, all of which have significant news, politics and business sections every day, as well as the sport. For a country as small and compact as the UK it’s quite a remarkable depth of reporting being churned out each day on those topics, and it’s generally enough to meet the demand for politics/business news in most newsagents and supermarkets, particularly the smaller ones. The larger ones tend to stock the Economist and Private Eye as well, and even other magazines like The Week sometimes.
But if you want to read politics and business news and commentary on a regular basis from newsagents, why not just read the broadsheets? Then get subscriptions to the magazines or buy them when you happen to see them.
And as far as science magazines goes - in what part of the world are those stocked in every corner store and petrol station?! I think the UK has done pretty well simply to have the New Scientist so readily available.