There are hundreds of magazines available in most newsagents and supermarkets and a large section of the bottom shelf are magazines aimed at the pre-schoolers and young children. Most of their favourite TV stars (Peppa Pig, Diego & Dora, Thomas the Tank etc) have their own publication. The brightly coloured covers at children’s eye level temp every toddler into begging mummy for their favourite magazine. To encourage the kids even further pretty much every issue comes with a fantastic free toy attached to the front cover. Purchases in this house have been made on the basis of a plastic mobile phone and a tiara in the past. One free phone is still going but most tat falls apart within minutes of getting home. Certainly my children are more interested in having a magazine (and toy) in their hands than looking at their favourites on the internet but they are still quite young.
There is also a large market with magazines aimed at slightly older children who make their choices themselves and purchase using their own money. When I was at school (many years ago) my first regular girl’s magazine was Jackie before I moved on to Smash Hits which was a bit cooler. Once I got slightly older then Mizz and Just Seventeen were firm favourites and also More magazine but I tended to hide this one from my mum as the content was definitely more adult than she would have liked me reading at 14 or 15.
I’m not sure boys are as interested but there are plenty of sport related magazines for them as well as music and hobby magazines which would appeal more to boys. There is a popular ‘ploy’ to encourage you to buy the magazine every issue which is to offer a complete set of something in parts. Obviously it would probably cheaper to simply buy the set of whatever you are collecting for ‘free’ with your magazine but somehow a discounted first issue is enough to tempt people into making the purchase.