Trades No Longer Press, Event Revenues Surpass Print

In a milestone symbolic of the shifts taking place across all media, business-to-business media can no longer be described as the "trade press." That's because print advertising now represents a minority of the revenues generated by business-to-business media companies. According to a compilation of 2006 revenue data released Monday by American Business Media, "face-to-face revenue" has surpassed print advertising sales for the first time in the history of the industry.

By face-to-face revenues, the ABM means conferences, trade shows and events, which garnered $11.3 billion among ABM members participating in the association's Business Information Network tracking reports. That brings events to a 36% share of B-to-B revenues, nudging out B-to-B print advertising's 35% share for the first time ever.

It's a trend that is not likely to reverse itself. The ABM estimates that events is the third fastest growing source of revenues for B-to-B publishers, surpassed only by the rapid rise of digital (online) advertising sale and custom publishing. Print advertising, by comparison, has been steadily declining.

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According to BIN estimates also released Monday, print advertising pages fell 3.1% in January vs. January 2006, while print advertising revenues were down 2.8% for the first month of the year. The worst category fittingly was media, with Movies/Radio/TV/Video trade press ad pages down 10.8% in January.

"As business media companies continue to move into a multiplatform environment, the industry is experiencing growth in three out of four of its major segments: trade shows, custom media and e-Media," ABM President-CEO Gordon Hughes stated, adding, "E-Media has grown a remarkable 22% in revenue over 2005, followed by custom media's 18% growth spurt and trade shows bringing up the rear at a 10% growth variance over 2005. Although ad pages and revenue for January 2007 showed a decline of 3.1% and 2.78% respectively, as predicted, the business media industry now represents $31.1 billion in revenues across all four platforms, making the power of the brand at the heart of everything you do."

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