• by Michael Shields , November 2, 2004

The increasingly crowded home and shelter magazine category may be experiencing its own version of sprawl.

Clearly, Americans are more home obsessed than ever before, as evidenced by the popularity of TV shows like "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," "Trading Spaces," and anything on HGTV. Consequently, a new generation of shelter magazines has exploded in the last four years.

Yet what has resulted is an exceedingly cluttered category divvying up a largely unchanged advertising budget. The more established home and shelter books are left to fight the novelty, the trendiness, and the marketing power of these newer titles, and many in the industry are predicting an inevitable shakeout.

Since around 2000, a broader-based group of home/women's service titles have set the category afire, many selling a more relaxed decorating philosophy. Mega-success O, the Oprah Magazine begot O at Home, which sold more than 800,000 copies of its first issue.

Time Inc.'s Real Simple has reached a 1.55 million rate base in just four years, while the company's latest, Cottage Living, has already raised its rate base to 650,000 in a few short months. Time also plans to launch InStyle Home, and Conde Nast will launch home-shopping bible Domino in 2005.

However, a plethora of new magazines has not necessarily resulted in larger marketing budgets from home furnishing manufacturers.

"What is really fascinating is that the budgets in North Carolina really have not changed significantly in recent years," noted Brenda Saget, publisher at Traditional Home, on the furniture market. "All of these new magazines are fighting over a finite group of expenditures. Titles are really struggling. It's going to be tough."

It's been venerable titles like House and Garden and the 106-year-old House Beautiful that have absorbed big hits in ad spending this year. H&G is down 11 percent in ad pages, while HB is down 8.3 percent, and each book has lost readers.

"There is not enough business to support all of these magazines," said House Beautiful Publisher David Arnold, who cited research findings that 117 magazines on the market have the word "house" or "home" in the title.

While consumers are undeniably passionate about their homes, "the advertising base has not grown to embrace the consumer interest," said Arnold.

If the flat ad market is one problem, says Arnold, the sense of "sameness" in the category is another.

"A big challenge in the category is that most people have a difficult time distinguishing one book in the category from the other," he said. Arnold also believes that apartment-dwelling Madison Avenue planners may not relate to the decorating world.

Consumers may be encountering the most confusion at the newsstand. While these newer books fly off the shelves, it seems that nearly every established title is being hammered when it comes to single-copy sales. Country Home is down 10 percent (based on the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations data), Traditional Home is down 14 percent, and House and Garden a whopping 18 percent, while Hachette's Home and Hearst's Country Living have each slipped by 6 percent.

While no one is naming names, there is a common conception among publishers that one or more of their rivals may fall by the wayside in the coming months or years.

Meanwhile, the post 9-11 comfort movement, frequently cited as being a key driver of consumer interest in several of the newer titles, has also forced established brands to face the choice of adapting their content or attempting to stay true to their roots.

"There are titles in the category that are wrestling with their editorial mission, whether to go upscale or mass," said Traditional Home's Saget.

"Just because a magazine has history doesn't mean it is at a disadvantage," countered Country Living Publisher Steven Grune. Grune claims that Country Living has been ahead of its time, as the magazine has been promoting a comfort lifestyle throughout its 26-year history.

That doesn't imply that Country Living has stood pat. "Any editor has to constantly evolve the magazine," added Editor Nancy Mernit Soriano. "There are so many options for consumers."

That is something that many titles have not done, according to Brett Stewart, senior vice president-director of the strategic print unit at Universal McCann. "Some of these books haven't evolved as much as others," he said.

While he was more optimistic than others, he cautioned that home books "should not be reliant on endemic advertising," adding: "There are a lot of pages out there."

That sentiment was echoed by many publishers, who said that dollars from financial services, automotive, and consumer electronics have been crucial for their businesses.

Yet focusing on a distinct decorating specialty while relying on a base of endemic advertising may be the best approach for some publishers, rather than trying to match the mass approach of a Real Simple or a Martha Stewart Living. "We don't try to be all things to all people," said Anne Triece, vice president, publisher at Metropolitan Home. "We make it very clear to readers and advertisers."

While most contend that some of the more established home titles are most vulnerable in the near future, Sims Bray, publisher of Veranda, believes that it is the newer books that are shaky.

"The question is, do these magazines bring anything new to the table?" he said. "I was trying to find something new. But it looks like it's pretty much recycled edit."