Bliss is top of the struggling teen mags

Bliss magazine has overtaken Sugar to become top of the teens in a year in which the struggling teenage lifestyle sector lost nearly 90,000 readers.

While the Emap title showed a slight year-on-year decline of 2.8 per cent to 277,165, this was outweighed by a sales drop of 15.3 per cent for former top title Sugar, and losses of 18.8 per cent year on year for Cosmopolitan’s little sister, CosmoGIRL!

The only magazines to put on sales in the sector were DC Thomson’s Shout and Irish title Kiss, both small sellers at 74,409 and 14,049 respectively.

Mandy Key, publishing director of Bliss, said: "The appointment of [former Smash Hits! editor] Lisa Smosarski has helped take Bliss to another level, delivering timely, relevant and compelling campaigns."

Despite a large sales drop for NatMags’s CosmoGIRL!, publishers were upbeat about the figure, which also showed a sales increase of 5.8 per cent in the latter half of last year, after the magazine returned to a monthly frequency following an unsuccessful experiment in publishing tri-weekly.

Group publishing director Jan Adcock said: "It has been a challenging year in the teen sector. CosmoGIRL! is the voice of young British teens and we are committed to it being the most innovative, high quality premium priced title in its sector."

IPC’s Mizz showed a further sales drop of 14.1 per cent year on year, down to 60,425. Negotiations are well underway to sell the magazine to sticker-book publisher Panini.