• by Larry Dobrow , May 7, 2004

Consumer magazines experienced their 11th consecutive month of ad page erosion, a pattern that could make 2004 the third straight year of declining magazine ad volume. According to estimates released last week by the Publishers Information Bureau, the magazine business once again ran in place during April, with ad pages down 0.5 percent against the same period in 2003 even though revenue jumped 6.8 percent. For the first four months of 2004, pages have declined 1.7 percent and revenue has grown 6.5 percent.

Magazine Publishers of America executive vice president and chief marketing officer Ellen Oppenheim pointed to gains in two categories that had sharply cut back their magazine advertising over the last few years. "The financial/insurance/real estate category showed gains for the second consecutive month," she said in a press release. "The food/food products category also saw a significant boost in activity, driven in part by advertising aimed at health- and diet-conscious consumers."

In April, six of the 12 ad categories monitored by PIB saw increases in both paging and revenue. Though the battered public transportation/hotels/resorts category was flat in pages, magazines stretched the revenue they generated from those pages by slightly more than 29 percent over April 2003 levels. The automotive category, traditionally magazines' strongest, rebounded slightly after a few below-average months, with pages up 0.7 percent and revenue up 9.8 percent.

For the year to date, five of PIB's 12 categories have seen page and revenue growth over 2003. Financial/insurance/real estate is up 6.7 percent in pages, though that percentage growth is swelled by easy comparisons with the year-ago period. Two of last year's better performers, automotive and drugs/remedies, are down 6.6 and 5.4 percent, respectively, in pages.

Magazine Ad Pages, Revenue, Revenue Per Ad Page

                  Ad Pages    Ad
Dollars  
April                -0.5%         +6.8%  
March                -1.9%         +6.7%   
February             -5.1%         +4.6%   
January              -0.3%        +10.4%

Source: Publishers Information Bureau.