That’s Life! claims to be #1 in real life category, monthly selling well

• Pacific responds to ‘misinformation and outlandish claims’

The team behind Pacific’s That’s Life! brand is celebrating following what it is calling the successful launch of its monthly edition which has seen the brand take a 54% share of sales against its main competitor.

The Pacific title goes head-to-head with Bauer’s Take 5. The good news for both publishers is there a big audience still consuming their growing stables of regular titles and special editions.

See also: New monthly – That’s Life! brand continues to thrive 25 years after launch

Linda Smith (pictured), editor of That’s Life!, has updated Mediaweek about the launch following our recent report.

“This is an absolute testament to the power of the That’s Life! brand. We see that share only growing as we head into issue two and beyond.”

Pacific launched the new monthly title in the lead up to the Australia Day long weekend and according to Smith, “sales have exceeded all expectations”.

Our weekly magazine has dominated our rivals and led in copy sales for 25 years. That absolutely still continues today, so I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised that we would lead with the monthly as well,” she said. “We continue to win where it matters to us, and our partners, and are always innovating to ensure that stays the case.”

Louisa Hatfield, general manager for family and entertainment at Pacific, told Mediaweek: “Recently there has been misinformation in-market about the real-life category with some pretty outlandish claims. Some brands are adding together their weekly and monthly readership and claiming that as an overall readership. Obviously, that is a nonsense as it doesn’t allow for any duplication.

“The reality is that there is no comparison between That’s Life! and any other brand.”

See also: How Bauer’s Take 5 keeps its growing audience entertained

Across print, digital, social and audio, That’s Life! claims a footprint of 2.5 million. On Facebook 870,000 followers engage with content created specifically for the platform.

One of the brand’s recent extensions is the How I Survived podcast, now in its second season, which each fortnight shares a shocking true story of a person who has survived against the odds.

“Our audience is absolutely loving How I Survived. We’ve had around 70,000 downloads, which is easily the best performing in the magazine category,” said Smith. “Like all of our successes, we’re looking at ways to capitalise on this so stay tuned.”

Update – In response to claims published above, Bauer Media’s Paul Merrill advises Mediaweek:
“Take 5 is now the leader in the real life market. Our weekly and monthly mags have an unduplicated readership of 961,000 – 362,000 more than That’s Life! To suggest we were simply adding our readerships together is ridiculous and shows a worrying lack of maths skills. Our Bumper Monthly alone has 692,000 readers making it the most read real life magazine in Australia. In terms of cross-platform audience, Roy Morgan reported that the weekly Take 5 has 777,000 compared to That’s Life!’s 646,000.”

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