The latest Audit Bureau of Circulation figures, released today, show that the circulation of the print edition of the New Statesman rose by more than 1,000 in 2012 to 24,910. The ABC figures do not include the Kindle or digital editions, which have an additional 2,000 subscribers.
New Statesman will be 100 years old on 12 April. It was founded by Beatrice and Sidney Webb, with £5,000 of donations from friends, including £1,000 from George Bernard Shaw. Beatrice Webb was pessimistic about the prospects of her weekly review of politics and the arts. “If I were forced to wager, I should not back our success,” she wrote in a diary entry.
One hundred years later, because of the success of its website (Newstatesman.com has just announced record traffic growth, with more than 1.15 million unique monthly users) and its availability on digital formats such as Kindle, the New Statesman is reaching more readers than ever. Even the circulation of the paper magazine is rising again, without marketing, at a time when so many print titles are struggling. The business of the business is improving and, after a successful 2012, the New Statesman is now broadly breaking even.
The circulation of the New Statesman has been broadly stable, with the odd fluctuation up or down, since the early 1990s – over a period when printed publications generally have seen a dramatic decline. As it approaches its centenary, with the website so buoyant, the magazine as strong as it has been for many years and winning awards, and a new app in the pipeline, the New Statesman is set fair.
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