• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, July 17, 2009

After one of the worst years on record, magazine publishers are praying for a rebound in ad demand the second half of 2009 -- or at least a slowing in the rate of decline. The latest figures from the Publishers Information Bureau suggest that two categories targeting female audiences -- domestic and celebrity titles -- may be showing signs of stabilizing.

No one will be breaking out the champagne yet, as large swaths of the magazine business are still in trouble. General-interest titles, including newsweeklies and business magazines, are still in freefall, with six leading newsweeklies -- New York, The New Yorker, Newsweek, Time, U.S. News and World Report and The Week -- experiencing an average 28% decline in ad pages during the first and second quarters of 2009, while 12 major business titles, from Business Week to SmartMoney, saw ad pages decline an average 26.4% in the first quarter, followed by 32.3% in the second.

The picture is equally grim for fashion, where nine leading titles, from Allure to W, saw ad pages drop an average 30.8% in the first quarter and 31.4% in the second quarter. Women's lifestyle magazines are slightly better off, but still dropping -- with eight titles, from Cosmopolitan to Seventeen, showing an average first-quarter decline of 17.9% and a second-quarter decline of 20.5%.

Categories that depend heavily on certain low-performing parts of the economy -- namely shelter and auto enthusiast titles -- are still tumbling. Ad pages at 12 leading shelter titles, from Architectural Digest to Traditional Home, fell an average 23.9% in the first quarter, followed by a 28.8% decline in the second. Finally, ad pages at eight men's fitness and lifestyle titles, from Details to Playboy, fell an average 27.5% in the first quarter and 32.9% in the second.

Against this grim backdrop, relatively small declines provide hope that the domestic and celebrity categories may have at least finally hit bottom. Ad page losses at seven leading domestic titles-- Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal, Martha Stewart Living, Real Simple and Woman's Day -- reached their low point in the fourth quarter of 2008, with an average percentage decline of 19.1%.

In the first half of 2009, the same titles experienced two quarters of declines -- but unlike most other categories, these have grown smaller over time, with a 15% decline in the first quarter followed by a 13% decline in the second. What's more, according to MIN, this trend continued in July, with Better Homes and Gardens down just 7.3%, Family Circle up 10.4%, Ladies' Home Journal down a mere 2.1%, and Woman's Day down a modest 7.9%.

True, three of the seven titles bucked the trend toward smaller decreases in July -- with Good Housekeeping down 18.2%, Martha Stewart Living down 29.3%, and Real Simple down 31%. But July's average percentage decline of 12% did not contradict the overall upward trend.

The situation in celebrity titles is a bit sketchier, given the category's volatile tendencies. However, here again there is some ground for guarded optimism. Between the fourth quarter of 2008 and the second quarter of 2009, six celebrity titles -- Entertainment Weekly, In Touch Weekly, Life & Style Weekly, People, Star, and Us Weekly -- entered and then exited a trough that saw average declines of 25.9%, 27%, and 19.6%, respectively. Leading the way were People and Us Weekly, which in the fourth quarter of 2008 saw declines of 25.5% and 21% respectively -- but subsequently improved to declines of just 9.3% and 9.6% in the second quarter of 2009.