What looked to be a sunnier February for consumer titles turned into a cloudy March, with the all-important automotive category once again trimming its magazine spending from year-earlier levels.

Ad pages for the first three months of the year were up by 0.7 percent, to 53,748.27, compared to the same period a year ago, according to the latest data from the Publishers Information Bureau.

A big factor behind this modest growth has been the sustained ad spending of the drugs and remedies category, which was up 13.7 percent in pages through March, ranking No. 1.

Automotive, No. 6, started the year strong, up 12.7 percent in January, but has been on a slide, to average 3.7 percent for the first three months versus the year-earlier period.

Among the 23 magazines categories tracked by Media Life, 11 were up and 12 down. But interestingly, there were wide spreads in the performance of individual categories, far more than usual, with some showing strong gains over the first three months of 2007 while others were way off.

Teen magazines, for example, were down 31.6 percent in pages, reflecting the closing of two titles, Elle Girl and Teen People.

Also suffering was the parenting category, down 11.1 percent, with all but two of the eight titles, Cookie and Family Fun, showing page declines. Like the teen category, parenting titles have been especially hurt by the migration of readers and advertisers to the internet. Just recently, Meredith announced it was folding the print edition of Child.

Also hurting, as they have been for some time, are the personal finance and business titles, off 5.2 and 5.5 percent through March. The weekend titles were also down, though, after a long streak of page gains, off 7.3 percent.

But there were also a handful of strong gainers, most notably among the women's titles. Women's service and beauty was up 13 percent in pages, with every title, including the long-suffering Jane, showing page gains.

Fashion was up almost as much, 12.6 percent, and again all the titles showed strong gains, while shelter was up 11.9 percent in pages.

Entertainment was up 11.1 percent, even with the folding of Premiere, with all but two magazines showing page gains.

In terms of total dollars, spending for the three-month period was up 6.4 percent, to $5,719,274,706, based on PIB calculations from magazine rate cards before discounting.