Sorry, but this failed to start my motor. Maybe another four or five years of the same trend ...
Posted on 07/11/2009 4:35:38 AM PDT by abb
The second quarter didn't bring any improvement in the fortunes of consumer magazines, which saw ad pages plunge 29.4% compared to the same period last year, from 60,721 to 42,841, according to the Publisher's Information Bureau. While not completely unexpected, this bad news dims the prospects for recovery later this year.
At this rate, 2009 is shaping up to be the worst year for consumer magazines since 1932, when total revenues dropped 30%.
Of course it's possible the steep declines in the first half of the year will be offset by smaller losses in the second half, but this becomes less likely in light of the continuing downward trend. The latest PIB figures represent the ninth straight quarterly decline for consumer magazines, marking over two years of uninterrupted losses. This is virtually unprecedented: Over seven decades between the Great Depression and now, consumer magazines never experienced two consecutive years of declines -- but they now appear to be suffering their third.
Even more alarming, the rate of decline appeared to be accelerating in the second quarter, furthering a long-term trend.
Between the second quarter of 2007 and the second quarter of 2009, magazines have posted quarterly, year-over-year declines in ad pages of 2.1%, 2.3%, 0.2%, 6.3%, 8.3%, 12.9%, 17.2%, 26.1%, and 29.4%, respectively. The losses have grown from isolated declines affecting only certain categories to an industry-wide freefall. Out of 250 leading titles tracked by PIB, only 11 saw ad pages increase in the second quarter: Cooking with Paula Deen (up 0.2%), Country Weekly (8.4%), Family Circle (8.2%), Fitness (18.4%), Muscle & Fitness (16%), OK Weekly (16.6%), Organic Gardening (3.2%), People Style Watch (15.9%), Scholastic Parent & Child (2.5%), Sports Illustrated Kids (2.1%), and The Week (11.3%).
There were also 18 titles that closed or didn't submit data for the second quarter. Thus 221 magazines -- 88% of the titles tracked by PIB -- saw ad pages decline in the second quarter.
In order of magnitude, some of the biggest percentage drops for the year to date, covering the first half of 2009, have come at Architectural Digest (down 49.5%), Boating (49%), Wired (47.6%), Gourmet (46.1%), W (44.2%), Life & Style Weekly (44.1%), Dwell (43.1%), Town & Country (42.9%), Conde Nast Traveler (42.4%), Teen Vogue (40.8%), Men's Journal (38.4%), Fortune (38.2%), Details (37.3%), Southern Accents (37.4%), Business Week (36.8%), Automobile Magazine (36.6%), Latina (35.8%), Maxim (35.8%), Real Simple (35.6%), Vanity Fair (35.2%), Bon Appetit (34.5%), Fast Company (33.6%), New York (33.5%), National Geographic (33.2%), Allure (32.4%), Autoweek (32.1%), Entertainment Weekly (31.9%), GQ (31.8%), Road & Track (31.8%), Metropolitan Home (31.4%), Motor Trend (31.3%), Vogue (31%), Money (30.5%) and Forbes (30.2%).
ping
http://www.magazine.org/advertising/revenue/by_ad_category/2009Q2.aspx
PIB: Recession Continues to Impact Magazine Advertising in First Half
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124726569778525439.html
Ad Pages in Consumer Magazines Fall 30%
http://www.foliomag.com/2009/consumer-magazine-ad-pages-plunge-29-5-percent-second-quarter
Consumer Magazine Ad Pages Plunge 29.5 Percent in Second Quarter
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2009/07/06/daily87.html
Denver Post sales down 17% weekdays, 12% Sundays from combined Post-Rocky numbers
Bwahahaha....I have friends (former) that own a marina in Florida...and are Obama supporters....When I asked them how Cap & Trade would affect their business, they just stared....go figure...
Totals for individual magazines.
http://www.magazine.org/advertising/revenue/by_mag_title_ytd/2009FH.aspx
http://www.magazine.org/advertising/revenue/by_mag_title_qtr/20092Q.aspx
Newsweek down 34% from Q2 last year.
Time down 19% from Q2 last year.
Indeed good news!!
Sorry, but this failed to start my motor. Maybe another four or five years of the same trend ...
Most of the magazines on this list won’t be around that long.
Great way to start the weekend.
Indeed good news!!
Does this really mean the schmucks have lost 40 to 60 percent of their ad revenues in the past two years?
Just darn!
That number is probably reasonably close. Check out USN&WR. They went monthly a while back, IIRC.
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=137822
A common adage in business schools today is that the railroad companies failed because they didn’t realize they were in the transportation business, not the railroad business. I would suggest that today, broadcasters are similarly confused. National broadcasters are in the video-advertising business.
Any TV company that generates more than 50% of its revenue from selling video advertisements is in the video- advertising business. It is not in the content business, as it would like to believe. TV content is simply the delivery mechanism for video advertising.
This is an important distinction. A range of delivery mechanisms have arrived and the ensuing tsunami of available video inventory is going to threaten all broadcasters who don’t recognize this emerging phenomenon and address their customers’ changing viewing habits and needs.
snip
Maybe they should put Michelle Obama on the cover.
How about putting Barack Obama on the cover?
Or how about a special edition with Michelle AND Barack Obama on the cover with a special section about how much they love each other and what their favorite foods are?
How about a cover with Michelle, Barack, AND the kids on the cover?
Or how about Michelle, Barack, the kids, AND the dog on the cover?
Problem solved.
Great data. The list of “biggest losers” is quite telling, when you put in context of the economy.
Almost forgot.
How about a cover with Michelle, Barack, the kids, the dog, grandma, AND Oprah?
I'm gonna phone that in to them right away!
Check out: Marketing Myopia, a Harvard Business Review article which says the same thing -- about railroad companies and Hollyweird moguls.
National broadcasters are in the video-advertising business.
All the MSM is in the advertising business. TV is nothing more than a video billboard. Newspapers are nothing more than printed fliers. News is nothing more than that crap you put in your rag so people will look at the ads.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-sunvalley11-2009jul11,0,4860098.story
Sober outlook in Sun Valley
Moguls at this year’s Allen & Co. conference say that ‘it’s going to take years and years’ before their weakened empires see real growth.
Well, duh. I subscribe to US News & World Report. It recently went online and its paper copy went from being a "weekly" to a "monthly". These people don't realize that a lot of folks want something to read from their easy chair or the bathroom -- not something to be read from a screen sitting on a desk. They have lost me as a subscriber.
If magazines published something besides liberal trash, people might buy them. You can’t target 20% of the population (liberals), and expect to do well. Liberals can’t read or comprehend.
Likely most of the clowns that run and work at these mags voted for Prez HopeyChangey.
So surely they must be ecstatic with the changey thingy going on at their businesses.
If they want sympathy, they can bite me.
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