Ellen Oppenheim, Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer, Magazine Publishers of America, said "The picture was brighter with an increase in major categories posting ad page and revenue growth, despite softness overall... In addition, almost six times as many titles generated ad page gains in the 1st quarter compared to first quarter of 2009, another sign of industry improvement. The positive trending... suggests that second quarter performance for magazines will be stronger."
Total magazine rate-card-reported advertising revenue for the first quarter of 2010 closed at $4,045,091,620, posting a 3.9% decline against the same period in 2009, Ad pages during the first quarter totaled 34,794.94, at -9.4% compared to January through March, 2009.
The magazines that saw ad revenue and page growth in three of 12 major advertising categories during the first quarter of 2010 are Automotive; Financial, Insurance & Real Estate; and Toiletries & Cosmetics. This marks the first time since 2007, that the Auto category has posted an increase in both revenue and pages. The gains were driven primarily by Detroit activity. Cosmetics, personal hygiene and hair products boosted the Toiletries category, while credit cards and banking contributed to the growth in Finance.
Other major categories that saw an ad spending uptick within subsectors in the first quarter:
Q1 2010 vs. 2009 Details | ||||
Class Name | 2010Dollars | %Chg | 2010Pages | %Chg |
Drugs & Remedies | 489,872,914 | -6.7 | 3,740.50 | -15.6 |
Toiletries & Cosmetics | 488,569,493 | 11.5 | 3,154.59 | 7.6 |
Food & Food Products | 422,454,562 | -9.3 | 2,503.11 | -9.5 |
Apparel & Accessories | 317,319,567 | -11.6 | 3,436.67 | -15.7 |
Media & Advertising | 308,990,907 | -8.5 | 2,368.44 | -13.0 |
Retail | 301,388,045 | -0.4 | 2,672.70 | -6.2 |
Direct Response Companies | 280,975,605 | -7.1 | 2,765.59 | -8.0 |
Automotive | 231,589,115 | 16.3 | 1,692.94 | 1.3 |
Home Furnishings & Supplies | 193,875,120 | -0.8 | 1,447.89 | -10.2 |
Financial, Insurance & Real Estate | 190,354,469 | 18.3 | 1,594.39 | 11.3 |
Public Transportation, Hotels & Resorts | 179,941,364 | -17.6 | 2,322.36 | -13.0 |
Technology | 140,526,634 | -19.7 | 1,279.91 | -14.7 |
Source: PIB, Data As Of April 7th, 2010 |
For more details about the categories, please visit here, or for individual magazine totals, go here.