Pages are down but revenue per page is up for June. That’s the bottom line on the new Publisher’s Information Bureau numbers released today, as ad revenue for magazines jumped 6.1%.
Total magazine
advertising revenue for the month closed at $1,403,155,992, according to the PIB. Ad pages for June totaled 18,905, down 1.2% from last year. Year-to-date, advertising revenue closed at
$7,720,275,904, a decrease of 1.6%, and ad pages were 105,830, down 9.9% over the same time period last year.
Ten of the twelve major advertising categories recorded positive dollar growth. The
biggest gainers were most notable in Food & Food Products, Home Furnishings & Supplies, Media & Advertising, Drugs & Remedies, Automotive, Toiletries & Cosmetics and Financial, Insurance & Real
Estate. The automotive category broke out of its magazine slump with a 7.5 increase. The technology category continued to be the biggest drain on magazine performance. It was down 26% compared to June
2002. So far this year almost 3,000 ad pages have dropped out of the market in the tech sector. That’s a financial loss of $151 million.
Individual titles also reflected the continued tech slide.
PC Magazine was off 18% in pages over June 2001. Yahoo! Internet Life, publishing its final issue only ran 30 pages of ads, compared to 47 a year ago. Other notable drops in pages included Business
Week (20%) Fortune (31%) and Red Herring (70%).
On the upside, magazines aimed at young men continue to thrive. FHM (57%), Maxim (7%) Men’s Journal (26%) and Gear (44%) all posted gains. Strong
performances were also turned in for June by Better Homes and Gardens (32%), Conde Nast Traveler (23%), Fitness (57%) and Popular Science (85%). Nickelodeon had a banner month with Nick Jr. (68%) and
Nickelodeon (45%) turning in strong ad page counts.