• Advertising Age, Tuesday, July 14, 2009 11:28 PM

The number of ad pages booked by the three major business titles, BusinessWeek, Forbes, Fortune, has fallen by 64% from 1999 to the first half of 2009. The three magazines carried 6,193 ad pages in the first six months of 1999. In 2009, that number shrank to 2,204. That means it's likely the final year tally for the three won't crack 4,500 pages, a benchmark that all three managed to surpass on their own a decade ago.

Why the persistent drop for the business bibles? Business-to-business advertisers have found many more efficient, targeted ways to reach their customers. Brand campaigns remain an important component of their marketing, but the advertisers have also gotten much better at maintaining databases of the crucial decision makers who buy their products or services. The brands now focus on preserving customer loyalty and contacting new customers more directly than through a major magazine ad buy.

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