Several categories are holding onto ad pages
By Louisa Ada Seltzer Oct 14, 2009
True, magazine ad pages slipped nearly 27 percent in the third quarter, and it's just the most recent quarter to report a dramatic slide in pages.
And true, it's not likely to get much better in the near term. It's unlikely magazine advertising will ever return to what it was in the late '90s, before the internet truly arrived to turn the media marketplace on its ear.
But for all the gloom, there are a handful of magazine categories that are doing surprisingly well.
One is health/fitness (see charts, below). Pages for the six titles are down 10.8 percent for the first nine months of 2009, and one title, Fitness, is actually up smartly, showing a gain of more than 11 percent, from 532 to 594 pages.
Why?
It's anyone's guess, but one assumes that in hard times people tend to take better care of themselves, spending more time in the kitchen and at the gym and less time going to expensive restaurants, and advertisers are paying attention.
Also holding up well are the women's service titles, particularly the older sister titles like Ladies' Home Journal. That title is down less than 1 percent in pages over the first three quarters, and the category as a whole is off 12.4 percent.
The titles seeing the deepest hurt are what's called the New Sisters, such as Martha Stewart Living, down 29 percent, and O, the Oprah Winfrey title, down 31 percent.
Why are the older titles faring better?
For one, they've worked hard at updating themselves to compete with the New Sisters, but they are also less dependent on ad categories that have cut back in ad spending, notably automotive and financial services, which have been suffering.
It would also make sense that, as with the health/fitness titles, women are spending more time in the kitchen, which makes them all the more attractive to the advertisers targeting mothers in the home.
Another category that's holding up well is parenting, even with the folding of two titles recently, Cookie and Wondertime. Pages are off the least of any category, 7 percent.
But perhaps the biggest surprise of the lot is the entertainment category.
If people are cutting back, one would assume the first thing to go would be spending on entertainment. And that's certainly true to some degree, yet movie theaters continue to do well--movies being seen as a cheap evening, despite rising ticket costs--and so much of entertainment journalism is devoted to movies and movie actors and related celebs.
And of course another big area of coverage is TV, and watching TV is often the thing one does when skipping a night on the town.
The category is down just over 13 percent in pages for the first nine months of 2009.
Automotive Jan.-Sept. 2009 vs. 2008
Titles
2009
$s
2008 $s
%
chnge
'09
pages
'08
pages
%
chnge
AUTOMOBILE MAGAZINE
35,674,135
51,225,140
-30.4
363.15
560.56
-35.2
AUTOWEEK
19,711,155
30,010,217
-34.3
552.32
869.63
-36.5
CAR AND DRIVER
122,076,025
145,420,761
-16.1
584.33
731.59
-20.1
HOT ROD
41,809,877
46,920,632
-10.9
405.22
469.90
-13.8
MOTOR TREND
86,366,999
119,556,424
-27.8
520.02
770.54
-32.5
ROAD & TRACK
70,168,265
91,016,756
-22.9
572.39
783.24
-26.9
TOTALS
375,806,456
484,149,930
-22.4
2,997.43
4,185.46
-28.4
Source: PIB
Entertainment/Celebrity Jan.-Sept. 2009 vs. 2008
Titles
2009
$s
2008 $s
%
chnge
'09
pages
'08
pages
%
chnge
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
105,427,283
142,551,835
-26.0
635.84
903.01
-29.6
IN TOUCH WEEKLY
69,490,023
108,377,853
-35.9
647.01
871.87
-25.8
LIFE & STYLE WEEKLY
14,551,049
26,460,122
-45.0
288.63
416.04
-30.6
OK WEEKLY
56,099,244
47,755,400
17.5
676.98
586.21
15.5
PEOPLE
647,205,962
669,969,559
-3.4
2,348.32
2,551.53
-8.0
STAR
123,350,932
129,608,208
-4.8
843.48
898.26
-6.1
TV GUIDE
104,533,387
154,793,878
-32.5
553.57
755.63
-26.7
US WEEKLY
226,613,221
236,212,573
-4.1
1,249.15
1,373.02
-9.0
TOTALS
1,347,271,101
1,515,729,428
-11.1
7,242.98
8,355.57
-13.3
Source: PIB
Music Jan.-Sept. 2009 vs. 2008
Titles
2009
$s
2008 $s
%
chnge
'09
pages
'08
pages
%
chnge
BLENDER
7,737,017
37,407,971
-79.3
70.20
378.45
-81.5
ROLLING STONE
106,699,746
125,205,510
-14.8
630.56
779.76
-19.1
SPIN
20,084,647
26,815,290
-25.1
349.38
491.59
-28.9
VIBE
25,927,392
56,703,353
-54.3
260.94
578.99
-54.9
TOTALS
160,448,802
246,132,124
-34.8
1,311.08
2,228.79
-41.2
Source: PIB
Teen magazines Jan.-Sept. 2009 vs. 2008
Titles
2009
$s
2008 $s
%
chnge
'09
pages
'08
pages
%
chnge
J-14
5,254,032
5,544,985
-5.2
163.54
180.37
-9.3
SEVENTEEN
70,033,763
74,387,546
-5.9
537.92
608.49
-11.6
TEEN VOGUE
55,410,364
81,013,431
-31.6
497.68
814.50
-38.9
TOTALS
130,698,159
160,945,962
-18.8
1,199.14
1,603.36
-25.2
Source: PIB
Women's service/beauty Jan.-Sept. 2009 vs. 2008
Titles
2009
$s
2008 $s
%
chnge
'09
pages
'08
pages
%
chnge
ALLURE
99,914,462
140,555,123
-28.9
786.68
1,187.08
-33.7
COSMOPOLITAN
248,233,433
278,661,396
-10.9
1,002.49
1,182.96
-15.3
GLAMOUR
194,034,488
236,874,832
-18.1
1,010.34
1,302.37
-22.4
MARIE CLAIRE
91,226,619
104,588,276
-12.8
767.30
938.65
-18.3
TOTALS
633,409,002
760,679,627
-16.7
3,566.81
4,611.06
-22.7
Source: PIB
Fashion Jan.-Sept. 2009 vs. 2008
Titles
2009
$s
2008 $s
%
chnge
'09
pages
'08
pages
%
chnge
ELLE
188,067,557
226,257,338
-16.9
1,420.82
1,817.84
-21.8
HARPER'S BAZAAR
117,284,967
151,751,556
-22.7
1,024.70
1,410.91
-27.4
IN STYLE
226,500,376
258,990,756
-12.5
1,604.43
1,959.15
-18.1
LUCKY
92,338,773
124,330,686
-25.7
835.62
1,184.38
-29.4
TOWN & COUNTRY
49,547,196
92,034,382
-46.2
569.93
1,067.54
-46.6
VOGUE
214,918,560
301,075,372
-28.6
1,477.76
2,204.36
-33.0
W
68,127,519
120,351,876
-43.4
770.43
1,430.72
-46.2
TOTALS
956,784,948
1,274,791,966
-24.9
7,703.69
11,074.90
-30.4
Source: PIB
Travel Jan.-Sept. 2009 vs. 2008
Titles
2009
$s
2008 $s
%
chnge
'09
pages
'08
pages
%
chnge
ARTHUR FROMMERS BDGT TRVL
18,942,566
23,733,510
-20.2
341.54
474.76
-28.1
CONDE NAST TRAVELER
75,258,719
128,923,138
-41.6
655.37
1,187.97
-44.8
DEPARTURES
31,026,014
53,232,229
-41.7
367.86
659.97
-44.3
ENDLESS VACATION
11,091,905
10,493,050
5.7
133.27
132.95
0.2
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRVLR
18,728,776
29,144,346
-35.7
249.26
412.08
-39.5
TRAVEL+ LEISURE
85,923,618
106,426,039
-19.3
795.61
1,046.10
-23.9
TOTALS
240,971,598
351,952,312
-31.5
2,542.91
3,913.83
-35.0
Source: PIB
General Interest & Lifestyle Jan.-Sept. 2009 vs. 2008
