News Magazines has reached its sales target for the debut issue of the MasterChef magazine in just four days and has placed an order for more copies just a week after last Monday's launch, The Australian reports.

As previously reported in TSR, the magazine had sold an estimated 90,000 copies in three days.

Publisher of food titles, Fiona Nilsson, said the company would reprint approximately 15% of the initial 226,000 order to meet the excessive demand of some newsagents selling out in less than two days.

Nilsson said the reprint was unprecedented in her experience in the Australian magazine publishing industry.

"Not to say there haven't been, but we don't know of any other instances.

"We are incredibly excited to have this sort of response after all the work that has gone in. The team are just ecstatic."

News Magazines had set a sales target of 86,000 copies an issue for the monthly title, but Nilsson said they would now increase the planned print run for the second edition.

The successful launch of the new title was welcomed news for the magazine sector, which continued to face tough conditions in the March quarter, according to the latest readership and circulation data released last week.

Commericial director at Pacific Magazines, Peter Zavecz, said the market remained "very sensitive", with consumers carefully watching their discretionary spending. Even the rush to bulk-buy cigarettes ahead of the recent price rise had resulted in magazine sales "copping it a little bit", he said.

"We have had sizeable double-digit growth for the March quarter and it looks strong through to July and August," he added. "A lot of advertisers just scaled back (during the global financial crisis) and they're returning to their old investment level, or even higher."