The Spectatorwas the only current affairs magazine audited by ABC to grow both print and digital sales in 2025 – rising to the highest total sale in its 198-year history.
Meanwhile,Private Eyeremains the biggest selling UK current affairs title with fortnightly sales of 225,642 (down 3.1% year on year).
The Economistremains a global journalism success story with worldwide sales up 1.2% to 981,746.
Scroll down for full table listing UK current affairs magazine sales in 2026.
Due to changes inABCregulations, many publications boosted their totals by being allowed to count readers who receive both print and digital editions of publications twice in the overall circulation total.
This was not the case for The Spectator (which de-dupes print and digital readers) or The Economist (its 981,746 digital subscriptions total includes those who also receive the print edition). Private Eye does not have a digital edition.
Circulations have also been boosted for some titles (not The Spectator or The Economist) by readership on “all you can read” Spotify-style services for magazines like Apple+ and Readly.
BBC Science Focus, published by Our Media, leads the pack in terms of all you can read sales with total circulation of 353,644 per edition on these services.
For the purposes of ABC, an all you can read sale of an edition is triggered if one article is read once.
Services like Apple+ have become a useful additional revenue source for publishers but the per edition revenue is tiny compared to subscriptions sold directly to readers.
Source: Press Gazette
