Top 50 magazines in the US: The Atlantic is fastest growing title in second half of 2024

The Atlantic was the fastest-growing top magazine in the US in the second half of 2024, increasing its overall circulation 15% year-on-year.

The title grew its print circulation the most of any top-50 title and increased its paid subscriptions the second-most, according to data from the Alliance for Audited Media for the six months to the end of December.

The largest magazines in the US overall are AARP The Magazine (22.2 million copies per issue on average) and AARP Bulletin (22.1 million), both of which are published by AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons) and distributed to paying members.

They are followed by Costco Connection (15.3 million), which is similarly sent out to the wholesaler’s members and available for collection at its warehouses.

Collectively combined print and digital circulation across the top 50 fell year-on-year by 3.6%.

The most circulated non-member magazines are three Dotdash Meredith publications: Better Homes and Gardens, with a combined average print and digital circulation per issue of three million, Southern Living (2.8 million) and People (2.8 million). Of these, Southern Living and People were the only titles to record overall circulation growth in H2 2024, each growing 0.1% year-on-year.

Southern Living was also the largest non-member magazine in the US by print circulation alone, distributing 2.2 million print copies per issue in the six months to 31 December 2024 - a 6% decline on the same period a year earlier.

Among the 50 magazines with the largest print circulations there was an overall 5% decline, while ten titles grew their distribution year-on-year. Five of these - Kentucky Living, Carolina Country, Texas Co-op Power, Tennessee Magazine and South Carolina Living - are sent out for free to customers of energy cooperatives under the Touchstone Energy umbrella.

Forbes narrowly grew its print circulation 0.3% to 516,000, while Golf Magazine (658,000, up 0.8%) and member titles Momentum (published by the National MS Society) and Experience Life (from Life Time health clubs) were up by 2% and 5% respectively.

Two magazines on the top 50 saw their print circulation drop by more than 40%: Good Housekeeping (down 47% year-on-year to 696,000) and Food Network Magazine (down 43.5% to 602,000). The falls were large enough to mean the pair also saw the largest combined print and digital circulation declines of all the titles assessed, shedding 43% and 38% of their total circulation respectively.

A further six magazines recorded print declines of a fifth or more, including Reader’s Digest (1.6 million, down 22%), Time (722,000, down 22%) and Essence (716,000, down 22%).

The magazine with the highest digital circulation was Us Weekly, with average digital circulation of 1.7 million per issue. Digital circulation figures include those from "multi-title" or “all you can read” services such as Apple News+ and Readly, although in Us Weekly's case only account for 3% of digital reads. After Us Weekly, Golf Digest (880,000) and Better Homes and Gardens (857,000) boasted the highest digital circulations.

Overall, digital circulation among the top 50 grew 16%. By far the largest growth among the 50 most-circulated digital titles was TV Guide Magazine, which recorded 535% growth to 217,500. It was followed by The Elks Magazine (65,000, up 132.6%), the magazine of fraternal organisation The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

The largest digital decline was at Sports Illustrated, which saw its online circulation drop nearly half to 124,000. It was followed by HGTV Magazine (171,000), Good Housekeeping (233,000) and Reader’s Digest (207,100), all of which lost more than a fifth of their digital circulation.

Three titles in the top 50 drew most of their digital circulation from all you can read services: Cosmopolitan (268,000 digital circulation, 70% all you can read), Women's Health (270,000 and 73%) and Smithsonian magazine (66,000, 79%).

Across the 50 titles with the highest digital circulations, all you can read/multi-title services made up 16% of circulation. Each unique digital open of a title counts once toward multi-title digital circulation.

The most-subscribed magazines - combining both print and digital subscriptions - largely corresponded to the highest-circulation magazines. The largest subscription growth was seen at First For Women, which increased its subscriptions by 20% to 757,000, followed by The Atlantic which was up 15% to 1.1 million.

The non-member magazine with the most print subscriptions was again Southern Living, with 1.8 million. Us Weekly had the most paid digital subscriptions, at 1.7 million, followed by Golf Digest (880,000), Better Homes and Gardens (857,000), People (706,000) and The Atlantic (647,000).