'06: The Year That Wasn't For Consumer Magazines

Year-end numbers are in from the Publishers' Information Bureau (PIB), and there's few surprises for the magazine industry: 2006 was a hard year for consumer magazines, for the most part, a fact underlined by the closing of big titles like Celebrity Living, Cargo, Elle Girl, Teen People, and FHM. But some categories thrived--and even in categories that suffered, individual titles stood out with big gains in ad pages and revenue.

Overall, special interest titles struggled in 2006, including many magazines targeting audiences segmented by gender. Among the hardest-hit categories were homemaking magazines, which traditionally target women, and tech and sports' enthusiast magazines, which generally target men.

Shelter Mags

Among the big homemaking titles, Better Homes and Gardens saw ad pages fall 8.2% and rate-card revenue sink 2.9%. Good Housekeeping was basically flat, with ad pages down 2.2% and rate-card revenue up 4.1%. Home, a slightly smaller title, saw ad pages fall 11.1% and rate-card revenue decline 7.3%, and Metropolitan Home's ad pages sank 3.1% as rate-card revenue remained flat. Meanwhile, House Beautiful's ad pages tumbled 15.6% and rate-card revenue fell 9.8%. It wasn't all bad news in the homemaking categories. One of the bright spots was the continued success of Dwell, launched in August 2000, which targets younger women with hip content: the magazine saw ad pages jump 39.6% and rate-card revenue rise 59.9%. And House & Garden's ad pages jumped 15.3%.

advertisement

advertisement

Regional Lifestyle

Also successful were some titles focusing on rustic lifestyles, with Coastal Living's ad pages up 9.3% and Cottage Living's pages up 4.2%. But rustic lifestyle content is no guarantee of success: Country Living saw ad pages dip 4.4%, and Traditional Home and Town & Country were flat at year's end. Finally, homemaking and lifestyle mags with a specific regional spin also suffered: Midwest Living's ad pages were down 4.2%, Southern Accents' pages fell 5.6%, and Southern Living's by 12.2%.

Parenting

2006 was a dysfunctional year for parenting titles, which also target women. American Baby's ad pages fell 8.3%, Baby Talk tumbled 11.3%, and Child plunged 15.2%. Nick Jr. Family Magazine--targeting both parents and children--plummeted 19.8%, while category mainstay Parenting took an alarming 20.1% hit. Scholastic Parent & Child ended the year down 12.1% in ad pages. In this unhappy house there were just two bright spots: Family Circle, which enjoyed 8.9% growth in ad pages--and Wondertime, a new family title from Disney, launched at the beginning of the year that racked up 280 ad pages in less than 12 issues.

Men's Titles: Sports Enthusiast and Fitness

Special interest titles targeting men didn't fare much better in 2006, with categories such as health and fitness, sports, and cars and gadgets taking hits. Again, it wasn't all bad news in these categories--but success stories were the exception, not the rule. The traditional health and fitness category leader, Men's Health, saw ad pages drop 5.9%. But competitor Men's Fitness enjoyed modest growth of 3.1%, while Muscle & Fitness jumped 15.6%. Meanwhile, the big-name sports enthusiast titles suffered, with Sports Illustrated's ad pages down 3.5% and ESPN Magazine's falling 7.1%.

Outdoor and Niche Sports

Niche sports enthusiast titles generally fared poorly across a range of subject areas, although some losses were relatively small--and some titles were booming. For example, Golf Magazine's ad pages were down 7.3%, Golf World's were down 1.6%, and Golf Digest's were down 3.7%. And in the world of wheels, Cycle World's ad pages were down 3.4%, Ride BMX's fell 9.5%, and Transworld Skateboarding's were down 10.2%. On the bright side, Bicycling's ad pages were up 32.7%, with rate-card revenue rising 40.5% to $36.7 million, and Runner's World ad pages were up 6.0%, as revenue grew 14.8% to $66.5 million.

Big titles in the outdoor and sports categories tumbled in 2006, with Field & Stream's ad pages down 13.3% and Outdoor Life falling 14.9%. Alpine sports titles can't avoid the inevitable downhill metaphor, with Ski magazine tumbling 19.6% and Skiing down 15.8%. The downdraft also affected hunting and fishing titles, with Ducks Unlimited down 10.6%, Bassmaster down 10.9%, and Salt Water Sportsman down 9.7%. Recreational vehicles weren't spared either, with Boating down 10.9% and Motorboating down 18.1%.

The outdoor category also had its bright spots, including Outside Magazine, whose modest 4.8% growth in ad pages looks respectable relative to the genre as a whole. And Backpacker was hanging tough in 2006 with a more modest 0.5% decline in ad pages.

Trade and Hobbyist

Trade and hobbyist publications also took substantial hits in 2006, perhaps because the tips and project guides they specialize in are better delivered on the Internet. Family Handyman's ad pages were down 8.9%, American Woodworker sank 12.2%, and Popular Photography and Imaging's ad pages tumbled 20.1%, as rate-card revenue fell 24.3% to about $90.3 million. Sound & Vision, devoted to consumer electronics, saw ad pages fall 6.5%, and PC Magazine sank 6.2%.

Automotive

As car advertising flees print for the Internet, it's no surprise that auto enthusiast titles also hit a rough patch in 2006. Autoweek's pages were down 1.9%, Car and Driver's fell 7.9%, Road & Track's were down 7%, and Popular Mechanics sank 11.9%. But some titles are still cruising: Automobile Magazine's ad pages were up 11.2%, Motor Trend's were up 3.5%, and Hot Rod ended the year basically flat with a 1% uptick. The last three titles' success is especially remarkable given the collapse of auto ad dollars for magazines: according to the PIB, total auto ad pages fell 13.8% to 19,526, as total spending fell 11.0% to about $2.045 billion.

Men's Lifestyle

On the whole, men's general interest or fashion and lifestyle titles did much better than the special interest mags. In terms of ad pages, in 2006 Details was up 5.5%, Esquire grew 4.1%, GQ jumped 6.0%, and Men's Journal rose 5.4%. Meanwhile, newcomer Bestlife showed healthy growth on its small starting base: ad pages were up 64.2% to 425 and revenue jumped 120%.

Business

Unfortunately, the same can't be said of mags covering business and personal finance. Fortune saw ad pages fall 6.4%, as Fortune Small Business slid 8.3%, and Kiplinger's Personal Finance ended the year down 13.9%. Money was down 9.6%, Smartmoney was down 3.8%. Hipper publications were not spared: Business 2.0 Magazine's ad pages were down 5.1%, while Fast Company's fell 15.9%. Nor were ethnically targeted publications: Black Enterprise saw ad pages slide 6.9%.

For the most part, success for business publications meant holding steady on a year-over-year basis: Forbes was up 0.9% in ad pages, the Economist was up 1.1%, Barron's was up 1.5%, and Entrepreneur was basically flat with a 0.8% dip. BusinessWeek had a modest loss of 0.6% in ad pages and somewhat larger 6.6% drop in ad revenue, ending the year at just over $310 million.

Next story loading loading..

Publication

2006*
Dollars

2005*
Dollars

%CHG

2006* Pages

2005* Pages

%CHG

AARP-THE MAGAZINE

166,210,033

143,527,530

15.8

340.83

306.30

11.3

ABA JOURNAL-THE LAWYERS MAGAZINE

7,839,337

8,919,934

-12.1

260.59

298.35

-12.7

ADVOCATE

11,104,579

11,517,109

-3.6

790.30

953.31

-17.1

ALL YOU

15,327,447

12,357,426

24.0

1,061.67

898.14

18.2

ALLURE

160,516,080

139,293,872

15.2

1,559.75

1,428.93

9.2

AMERICAN BABY

106,055,209

109,856,700

-3.5

670.75

731.50

-8.3

AMERICAN HERITAGE

5,596,472

5,256,537

6.5

148.51

144.84

2.5

AMERICAN PHOTO

12,252,360

14,700,726

-16.7

278.42

316.14

-11.9

AMERICAN WAY

49,661,828

42,322,739

17.3

1,761.78

1,533.92

14.9

AMERICAN WOODWORKER

8,118,181

9,231,976

-12.1

287.81

327.80

-12.2

ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST

167,127,023

160,660,253

4.0

1,708.71

1,711.54

-0.2

ARTHUR FROMMERS BDGT TRVL

27,783,515

26,663,405

4.2

686.37

764.20

-10.2

ATLANTIC MONTHLY THE

30,821,958

26,441,815

16.6

643.02

649.53

-1.0

AUDUBON

9,078,728

7,883,143

15.2

238.80

220.91

8.1

AUTOMOBILE MAGAZINE

70,022,682

59,842,282

17.0

859.63

772.97

11.2

AUTOWEEK

50,998,872

49,958,998

2.1

1,180.80

1,203.40

-1.9

BABY TALK

70,408,070

74,761,081

-5.8

519.42

585.73

-11.3

BACKPACKER

21,511,739

19,763,620

8.8

492.08

494.75

-0.5

BARRONS

53,675,026

51,357,114

4.5

1,396.41

1,375.32

1.5

BASSMASTER

15,668,567

17,485,381

-10.4

411.86

462.00

-10.9

BESTLIFE

21,981,103

9,954,325

120.8

425.42

259.04

64.2

BETTER HOMES & GARDENS

776,798,982

800,006,493

-2.9

1,957.34

2,133.18

-8.2

BICYCLING

36,740,443

26,157,232

40.5

730.63

550.41

32.7

BLACK ENTERPRISE

44,803,836

46,873,913

-4.4

1,057.50

1,135.49

-6.9

BLENDER

57,825,037

41,685,129

38.7

794.66

706.88

12.4

BOATING

45,268,878

48,518,733

-6.7

1,146.88

1,287.87

-10.9

BON APPETIT

105,596,625

101,615,769

3.9

959.80

976.73

-1.7

BOYS' LIFE

5,779,072

6,046,686

-4.4

144.39

141.55

2.0

BRIDAL GUIDE

95,941,165

97,378,681

-1.5

2,555.65

2,735.74

-6.6

BRIDE'S

190,821,893

151,520,402

25.9

2,825.55

2,379.61

18.7

BUDGET LIVING

0

16,642,504

-

0.00

397.53

-

BUSINESS 2.0 MAGAZINE

48,688,097

49,231,910

-1.1

755.77

796.52

-5.1

BUSINESS WEEK

310,378,846

332,400,680

-6.6

2,741.77

2,759.44

-0.6

CAR AND DRIVER

204,998,117

221,572,019

-7.5

1,141.93

1,239.37

-7.9

CARGO

11,227,626

34,947,122

-67.9

191.61

717.20

-73.3

CELEBRATED LIVING

4,440,788

4,198,699

5.8

229.33

223.33

2.7

CHILD

61,542,879

83,697,261

-26.5

914.47

1,078.57

-15.2

COASTAL LIVING

48,040,371

41,362,258

16.1

1,009.86

923.61

9.3

CONDE NAST TRAVELER

153,740,534

136,907,518

12.3

1,672.28

1,572.71

6.3

COOKIE

19,663,965

3,740,959

425.6

485.99

93.15

421.7

COOKING LIGHT

135,296,712

125,867,862

7.5

1,518.10

1,507.86

0.7

COSMOGIRL

81,082,969

72,297,487

12.2

794.33

771.36

3.0

COSMOPOLITAN

367,342,866

362,357,479

1.4

1,739.42

1,811.39

-4.0

COTTAGE LIVING

34,155,794

23,413,488

45.9

587.92

564.13

4.2

COUNTRY HOME

170,879,684

162,096,928

5.4

926.94

915.37

1.3

COUNTRY LIVING

154,100,688

160,852,644

-4.2

1,180.59

1,235.39

-4.4

COUNTRY WEEKLY

29,060,877

24,341,170

19.4

811.72

769.31

5.5

CYCLE WORLD

44,179,711

43,727,647

1.0

961.39

995.57

-3.4

DEPARTURES

75,264,071

62,976,219

19.5

1,093.14

964.17

13.4

DETAILS

65,721,460

57,914,477

13.5

1,241.82

1,177.03

5.5

DIABETES FOCUS

8,188,388

5,709,484

43.4

101.64

65.77

54.5

DIABETES FORECAST

9,798,533

9,255,359

5.9

480.53

477.14

0.7

DISCOVER

13,620,796

14,583,869

-6.6

234.26

256.57

-8.7

DISNEY ADVENTURES

18,981,290

18,805,482

0.9

263.73

274.41

-3.9

DOMINO

38,601,256

15,329,170

151.8

752.62

375.34

100.5

DUCKS UNLIMITED

6,681,405

7,442,003

-10.2

259.24

289.86

-10.6

DWELL

38,025,754

23,781,870

59.9