Media / Talk of the Trade: . . . and go up and down

MEANWHILE, magazine circulation figures for January to June are beginning to trickle out. ABC has no central system for releasing them, so those with the good news rush it out, while the rest try to bury it. First from the National Magazines stable is Good Housekeeping, sharply edited by Sally O'Sullivan, which trumpets the fact it has officially broken the half million figure with 501,654 for the year (up 9.8 per cent). Conde Nast reports rises of all six titles, with GQ up 16.1 per cent to 109,235 and Tatler up 15.3 per cent at 80,373, its highest circulation ever. Radio Times, which also verifies its circulation figures swiftly, has seen sales fall a further 4 per cent to 1.4 million (compared with the first half of 1993), while IPC expects to confirm that the breezy downmarket What's on TV will have shot up 8 per cent to sales of nearly 1.7 million copies, making it the UK's best-selling magazine.