Hachette shutters
Metropolitan Home
Monthly is just the latest shelter title to close
By Toni Fitzgerald
Nov 10, 2009
Yet another shelter title has been foreclosed upon.
Hachette Filipacchi Media today said it is shuttering Metropolitan Home, its high-end modern design magazine, with December the final issue.
All of Metropolitan Home's editorial employees, including editor Donna Warner, will lose their jobs, according to HFM.
The company is not giving up on the shelter category entirely, though, as Elle Decor will continue to publish.
That magazine will move from the Luxury Design Group, where it had dwelled with Metropolitan Home, to the Elle Group, under Carol Smith. HFM will eliminate the Luxury Design Group, which had been led by Deborah Burns, though Burns will stay with the company in another capacity.
"Hachette has never had a problem closing magazines," says the Grim Reaper, the anonymous magazine insider who runs the site MagazineDeathPool.com. "They probably had to make a choice, much like Conde Nast did with Gourmet and Bon Appetit ... which one is losing less money?
"Elle Decor may have lost ads but it may not be in the red as much as Metropolitan Home is. Elle Decor can share staff with Elle magazine as well, which makes it economically sound."
Metropolitan Home is merely the latest shelter title to shut down in the past two years. In all more than a half dozen have ceased publishing. They include Time Inc.'s Cottage Living, Conde Nast's House & Garden and Domino, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia's Blueprint, Hearst's O at Home and Meredith's Country Home as well as Hachette's own Home.
The shelter category has been hit particularly hard by the recession. According to Publishers Information Bureau data compiled by Media Life, 11 major magazines, some of which have already folded, have seen ad pages plunge 40.4 percent year-to-date, through third quarter.
That's compared to an average decline of 27.3 percent for all consumer magazines tracked by the PIB.
Metropolitan Home was down 32.7 percent year to date, to 466.39 pages, compared to a 34.1 percent decline to 533.56 pages for Elle Decor.
"The dwindling shelter magazine market is a reflection of two things, the housing market and the fact people have been spending much less money on the homes they own already," says the Reaper.
"Contractors are bargaining like they never did even as recently as three years ago. There is certainly a stigma in many circles regarding throwing lots of money at redecorating homes when so many executives have lost their jobs. It's being done 'tastefully' or not at all."
Certainly part of the hurt for shelter titles can be explained by the fact that one of its major ad categories, home furnishings and supplies, was off 26.3 percent this year.
But that's hardly the only reason. The recession has forced cash-crunched consumers to cut back on extras like home makeovers in favor of necessities like food and gas.
That's reflected in newsstand numbers for the shelter titles, which show a sharp decline over the six months ending June 30. Metropolitan Home's single-copy sales slid 20.6 percent, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
Meanwhile, titles that help people save money or offer ways to economize by eating at home, such as the traditional women's magazines, have held up well in both ad pages and circulation during the recession.
Metropolitan Home was founded in 1981 and produced 10 issues per year.
So far this year, 242 U.S. consumer magazines have been shuttered, according to MediaFinder.com, as well as nine that targeted business and consumer audiences.
|
Shelter ad pages
Jan.-Sept. 2009 vs. 2008 |
|
Titles |
2009
$s |
2008 $s |
%
chnge |
'09
pages |
'08
pages |
%
chnge |
|
ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST |
64,242,408
|
120,104,410
|
-46.5
|
568.24
|
1,115.05
|
-49.0
|
|
COUNTRY HOME |
18,738,031
|
97,937,511
|
-80.9
|
81.19
|
454.95
|
-82.2
|
|
COUNTRY LIVING |
96,154,840
|
103,080,677
|
-6.7
|
637.76
|
715.84
|
-10.9
|
|
DOMINO |
5,135,313
|
38,851,180
|
-86.8
|
46.94
|
472.99
|
-90.1
|
|
DWELL |
17,337,135
|
30,207,805
|
-42.6
|
448.67
|
827.67
|
-45.8
|
|
ELLE DECOR |
43,018,722
|
62,654,646
|
-31.3
|
533.56
|
809.96
|
-34.1
|
|
HOUSE BEAUTIFUL |
59,385,972
|
71,293,971
|
-16.7
|
439.07
|
559.27
|
-21.5
|
|
METROPOLITAN HOME |
42,448,712
|
63,509,427
|
-33.2
|
466.39
|
692.55
|
-32.7
|
|
THIS OLD HOUSE |
27,120,699
|
34,712,119
|
-21.9
|
309.62
|
422.11
|
-26.6
|
|
TRADITIONAL HOME |
61,201,598
|
62,173,506
|
-1.6
|
391.19
|
436.39
|
-10.4
|
|
VERANDA |
20,302,593
|
36,647,590
|
-44.6
|
353.48
|
672.61
|
-47.4
|
|
TOTALS |
455,086,023
|
721,172,842
|
-36.9
|
4,276.11
|
7,179.39
|
-40.4
|
|
Source: PIB |
|
|
|
