Happy New Fear: Monthly Mags' Ad Pages Down 7.7% in January

magazines

The situation is dire when a 7.7% drop looks good. And that's where monthly magazines are in January, according to Media Industry Newsletter, which recently released ad page figures for the coming month's issues of about 115 monthlies.

Of the 115 monthlies tracked by MIN in January, over half (62, or 54%) saw ad pages decline compared to January 2009. What's more, the losses were fairly top-heavy. While 17 of these titles (15% of the total), posted relatively modest declines of less than 10%, 15 (13%) experienced drops of 10%-20% and 30 (26%) tumbled over 20%.

It's also noteworthy that 37 titles usually measured by MIN didn't publish an issue this January -- either because they combined their December and January issues or simply didn't publish a January issue -- another measure for the medium's financial distress.

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While a 7.7% decline in monthly ad pages is hardly cause for celebration, it's an improvement over magazines' overall performance in 2009 -- which was generally disastrous for all branches of the media industry, but especially so for print.

According to separate figures from the Publishers Information Bureau, ad pages for the first nine months of 2009 declined over 27% to just under 120,000. By all accounts, the fourth quarter wasn't much kinder.

In fact, the slide in ad pages has been going on so long that it tempers the (relatively) good news of a mere 7.7% drop. Ad pages were already tumbling in January 2009 -- contributing to a 26% decline in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008, per PIB.

This year's comparisons were even easier. Viewed in this context, the 7.7% drop at the beginning of 2010 is a bit ominous, holding out little hope of comfort or recovery for publishers traumatized by the last year's free fall.

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