Magazines take
yet another ad bath
PIB: Pages tumble 26.6 percent in the third quarter
By Louisa Ada Seltzer
Oct 13, 2009
Finally, a faint glimmer of good news for magazines.
On the heels of last week's bloodbath at Conde Nast, when four titles were shut down, the latest numbers from the Publishers Information Bureau suggest that the worst of the ad page declines may be over for consumer publications.
Ad pages were off a still-significant 26.6 percent during third quarter, from 54,108.02 last year to 38,625.94. But the bleeding has slowed compared to second quarter, when pages were down 29.5 percent.
In fact, one advertising category actually showed year-to-year gains during third quarter. Food and food products were up 3.9 in ad pages, the first time this year any ad category has been up compared to 2008.
The other 11 categories were all down, with automotive continuing to see the biggest declines, off 46.1 percent. That's compared to a 47.6 percent decline in second quarter.
Of course, third quarter was helped a bit by favorable comparisons to last year. Third quarter 2008 saw ad pages decline 12.9 percent, compared to a 9.5 percent decline during the first half of the year.
Despite the increasingly favorable comparisons, it will still be some time before magazines' year-to-year declines slow to single-digits, to say nothing of posting gains.
Third-quarter magazine revenue was off 18.6 percent, to $4,533,416,446. Second-quarter revenue declined 22 percent.
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