• by Michael Shields , September 10, 2004

The business press received perhaps its best news in four years on Friday.

Ad pages for business-to-business magazines grew at a healthy 6.9 percent in July versus last year, according to American Business Media. That represents the largest month-over-month increase in ad pages since late 2000. Ad spending in July was up 6.8 percent.

The strong performance in July has helped make 2004 a more positive story, to a degree. Year-to-date ad dollars showed a 1.6 percent increase, with ad pages up just 0.4 percent.

"We're encouraged by the July numbers - we expected this kind of growth to come about a little later in the year," said Gordon Hughes, president and CEO of American Business Media in a press release. "We appear to be on track for 2 percent to 4 percent revenue growth in 2004."

Hughes is remaining cautious, given that ad pages grew in May, only to drop again in June.

July's growth was spread out among various ad categories, six of which showed improvement compared to the same period a year ago. Yet it was Automotive that drove the lion's share of growth, with a whopping 48.7 percent increase.

Other solid categories included Telecommunications up 15.7 percent; Home & Building up 11.5 percent; Drugs & Toiletries up 11.3 percent; Finance, Business & Advertising up 6.3 percent; and Retail up 5.3 percent.

If there was a downside to the July numbers, it was the software category, which skidded by 17.4 percent.