Lad leader Maxim sinks 39 percent in pages
By Heidi Dawley Mar 14, 2006
It's still early, and perhaps too early to call it a trend, but a number of leading men’s magazines are hurting, and real bad.
Overall ad pages for the men's magazine category were down 15.1 percent for the the first two months of 2006, to 791 pages, compared to the same period last year, according to Publishers Information Bureau numbers released yesterday. And the bad news extends across most of the titles in the category, with eight of the 11 titles showing ad page losses. Only three, Esquire, Men’s Fitness and Men’s Journal, are showing page gains.
FHM was down 44 percent and Maxim 39 percent.
Just why the men's title's are taking such a hit is entirely unclear. The category finished 2005 modestly ahead in pages. Is the lad's craze finally over? Are advertisers suddenly moving dollars to other media to reach young men, the internet, for example?
For its part, Maxim blames a slow start to the ad year, telling Media Life that April is up and that overall second quarter looks strong, "so no worries."
But while the men’s magazines category is taking a hit, things are finally looking a bit brighter for the beleaguered newsweeklies, personal finance titles and even the business magazines.
The first two months saw ad pages up 0.3 percent, to 1,167, at the newsweeklies and 4.4 percent, to 573, at the personal finance titles. The business and finance category was still in the red, with ad pages down 0.7 percent to 1,506. But that looks relatively healthy in comparison to the 7.7 percent that ad pages were down for the category in full-year 2005.
Overall, for all consumer magazines, the first two months of the year have come in just a bit better than flat. PIB reports ad pages were up 0.7 percent to 30,609 pages for the first two months of the year compared to the same period last year. That figure includes the weekend magazines.
Looking at February alone, one sees a stronger performance, with ad pages up 2.9 percent, to 16,838 pages, compared to February 2005, according to the PIB. That also included the weekend magazines.
Similarly of the 20 major consumer magazine categories tracked by Media Life, ad pages were up for 12 categories and down for eight in February, compared to 12 down and eight up in January.
Reported ad revenues, including weekend magazines, for the first two months of the year, based on rate card before discounting, were up 3.7 percent compared to the first two months of last year.
Looking at the 12 advertising categories tracked by the PIB, eight posted page increases in February compared to the same month in 2005. Retail was the biggest gainer in terms of pages, up 28.5 percent, to 922 pages, followed by apparel and accessories, up 23.3 percent, to 1,780 pages. The biggest declining category was food and food products, which was off 15.2 percent, to 936 pages.
The strongest-performing magazine category as tracked by Media Life was the Bridal category. With the spring wedding season around the corner, the category saw ad pages rise by 25.2 percent, to 1658 pages, through February compared to the same two months last year.
The teen titles remain strong, with ad pages up 6.9 percent, to 341 pages. Ad pages were up at all titles in this category, with the exception of Teen People.
Weekend magazines also continued to do well, with pages up 14.6 percent, to 1,053.
Looking at individual titles, Martha Stewart Living, which surged after Stewart was released from jail last spring, continues to be strong. Ad pages at the title were up 78 percent, to 145, for the first two months of the year compared to the same period last year.
At her cooking title, Everyday Food, ad pages were up 85 percent to 53.
Among the newsweeklies, Newsweek made strong gains, with pages up 19.1 percent to 300 pages. Among the business titles, Business Week showed the strongest gains among the big three, with pages up 12.1. Fortune was down 12.4 percent. The biggest category gainer was Fortune Small Business, which was up 23.4 percent. Fast Company continues to lose pages, and at an alarming rate, despite new ownership. It was down 53 percent.
