WITH the beginning of the new year, TIME’S guaranteed circulation in the U.S. reaches another new high: 3,300,000 copies a week, some 200,000 more than a year ago. This step-up fits a long-term pattern of steady growth, which has been accelerating in the past decade. In January 1946, U.S. circulation, in round figures, was 1,500,000; in January 1956, it was more than 2,000,000, an increase of about one-third. The new circulation base marks an increase of 65% in ten years.
TIME’S total worldwide circulation is now well past the 4,000,000 mark, with an estimated readership of 17 million in 150 countries. The breakdown by editions:
U.S 3,300,000
Atlantic 263,000
Latin America 92,000
Asia 100,000
Australia 65,000
New Zealand 30,000
Canada 300,000
Worldwide 4,150,000
In general, our readers around the world vary widely in age, occupation, status and interests. While not trying to flatter them or ourselves, we think of them as having a high level of intelligence, knowledge and taste. Among the newer readers, there are some fairly clear patterns. A full 80% of our U.S. circulation growth in recent years has been in the urbs, suburbs and exurbs of the East, the industrial Midwest and the Pacific Southwest. These new readers tend to be managerial and professional people, relatively affluent, and getting a little younger. A decade ago, more than half of TIME household heads were managers and professionals, and today the figure is just about the same: 53%. Over the same ten years, their median annual income has risen from $6,090 to $10,907; their median age has dropped from 40.2 years to 39.
The six international editions are all in English and virtually identical in editorial content (the Canada edition carries an additional four pages of Canadian news, written and edited by a staff based in Montreal). They are printed in six plants around the world. Their circulation gains (up 47% since 1956) have been coming largely from the economically advanced areas. For example, there is now one TIME reader for every 19 people in Canada, but only one for every 668 in Latin America.
TIME is even gaining behind the Iron Curtain, although the figures aren’t such as to send our circulation people swinging into a mazurka. Until the 1960s, circulation there was limited to 322; today it is 1,161. While most copies still go to government officials and foreign embassies, TIME is now sold on selected newsstands in Poland and Yugoslavia.
If percentages were everything, one might say we had made some spectacular advances in out-of-the-way places. In five years circulation in Greenland has nearly doubled—we now have eight subscribers there. And in Red China (pop. about 750 million) we have had our own great leap forward—from 3 to 20 copies, all to officials, and we hope they learn a lot.
AIMING to reach an important audience with an important message on safe driving, the Ford Motor Co. chose TIME as the one magazine to make the delivery. The 12-page ad in the center of this issue represents the largest single advertising commitment ever made in any issue of TIME.
More Must-Reads from TIME
- Inside Elon Musk’s War on Washington
- Why Do More Young Adults Have Cancer?
- Colman Domingo Leads With Radical Love
- 11 New Books to Read in February
- How to Get Better at Doing Things Alone
- Cecily Strong on Goober the Clown
- Column: The Rise of America’s Broligarchy
- Introducing the 2025 Closers
Contact us at letters@time.com