• Folio, Thursday, March 26, 2009 9:30 AM

Shortsighted strategies, timid management and the recession have hit traditional celebrity media hard, according to a new DeSilva + Phillips report. Among celebrity media, magazines "have the most to lose in the years ahead" in terms of audience and revenues, says the report. The nine magazines covering the celebrity space is too many and consolidation is inevitable.

People is perhaps the only brand to prove itself as a multiplatform leader-accounting for 24% of the category's print circulation, 28% of its ad pages and "an eyebrow-raising" 43% of its revenues. The fear for magazines is that when the economy eventually recovers, advertisers will direct their budgets to the Internet and television--and away from print. "The fear is justified," says the report.

In terms of the future of celebrity media M&A, "few gossip sites" have built the kind of loyal audiences to warrant serious M&A interest, reports DeSilva + Phillips.

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