Northern & Shell's OK!, which was the biggest-selling celebrity title in December last year, dropped back to third place with a 15.7% decline to sell an average 547,714 copies an issue over the past six months, according to figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations today.
Readers showed no sign of boredom with the celebrity formula, with the ABC figures showing that a massive 9.7m magazines are shifted every week in this sector -- a rise of 2.3% since December last year.
Emap's Closer was the biggest title this period, its circulation rising by 2.1% to 590,211. Its sister title Heat, the magazine that launched a thousand imitators, showed no sign of cooling off as it grows older. It reported a 0.8% rise in circulation over the past six months to sell 579,883 copies a month.
Competition in the sector continued to put the squeeze on IPC's Now magazine, down by 6.6% to 539,902 copies.
OK!'s arch-rival, Hello! magazine, appeared to have benefited from its worldwide exclusive pictures of Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and their newborn baby Shiloh -- for which it reportedly paid £3.75m. It saw a 3.3% rise in circulation to sell an average 403,666 copies a week.
Northern & Shell's other celebrity magazines had varying fortunes. New!'s period-on-period circulation dropped nearly 7.6% to 458,751 copies but Star was up by almost 26% to 268,797.
ACP-Natmag's Reveal fell by 0.9% to 342,245 copies a week, but last week the company said it had appointed TBWA\London to create a £3m advertising campaign to help build the brand.
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