IPC Media's market-leading title What's on TV did register a rise, albeit a small one of 0.1% year on year, bringing its circulation to 1,709,092. The only other title to register a rise was sister IPC title TV & Satellite Week, which put on an impressive 18.3%, bringing its total to 250,301, its rise clearly reflecting the growing cable and satellite TV market.
For all else concerned, sales were heading downwards. BBC Worldwide's Radio Times suffered a 3.9% slump in sales to 1,200,796, while H Bauer's TV Choice fell 4.2% to 751,618.
IPC was not exempt from the bad news -- its TV Times dropped 9.7% to 636,951, while its celebrity TV title Soaplife slid 8% to 114,218.
Attic Futura's celebrity and soap titles were also affected by the sector slump, Inside Soap slipped 4.8% to 243,633. The publisher, which is currently up for sale, also had the highest relative drop in the year-to-year stakes, as its All About Soap fell 15.2% to 102,704. H Bauer's TV Quick was not far behind with a drop of 11.6% to 511,737.
The only titles in the TV sector to do particularly well were the customer magazines, which come with subscriptions for Sky Digital, ITV Digital and NTL, all of which scored well in the ABCs. Sky's Sky Customer Magazine had a circulation of 4,745,063, up 79.4%; ITV Digital's TV7, 524,500; and NTL's ntl:guide, 1,833,945. TV7 and ntl:guide were being audited for the first time.