Acording to latest Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) data on motorcycling consumer publication sales in 2017, the remorseless digital onslaught on Bauer Media’s portfolio of monthly print titles appears to have stabilised.
Four out of Bauer’s five ABC-authenticated monthlies have actually posted marginal gains over the previous year. Market leader Bike did best, putting on 1% to an average of 37,459 copies per month. Classic Bike added 0.2% to 33,598. Practical Sportsbikes and Performance Bikes both grew slightly by 0.1%, respectively achieving 18,035 and 15,274. Only RiDE was on the back foot, shrinking by 4% to 32,353 — a loss of 1332 sales.
However, there was no relief from the ongoing decline of flagship Bauer print weekly tabloid Motor Cycle News. Numbers dropped by 8.9% to 60,719 copies, following a 10.5% fall in 2016. To be fair, MCN also has a high-profile website too, claiming more than half a million unique users.
Sales of both MCN and Bike have been slashed in half over the past 10 years. In 2008, the former sold 120,002 copies per week and the latter 74,339 per month.   Â