Curb Your Enthusiasm: Niche Titles Take Big Hits

Yachting Magazine Advertisers seem markedly less enthusiastic about niche magazines targeting fans of certain activities in the first seven months of 2008, with ad pages tumbling at virtually every major enthusiast title, compared to the first seven months of 2007.

Enthusiast titles targeting male readers are suffering the most, but there's plenty of bad news to go around, spanning a variety of categories. In broad terms, the biggest declines hit maritime, outdoor recreation and motor sports. Fitness and sports titles did a bit better, on the whole, with some titles up slightly but others enduring big drops.

Some of the worst losses in percentage terms came at boating titles. In happier times, these titles drew advertisers from a variety of categories with their small, mostly male and very affluent audience; now the sinking metaphor is unavoidable. Boating's ad pages are down 25.6% compared to last year, Motor Boating almost 16%, Power & Motoryacht 21.3% and Yachting almost 18%.

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Titles focused on outdoor recreation are also doing poorly: Hunting is down 21.1%, Outside almost 8%, and Salt Water Sportsman 24.5%. On the slopes, Ski is down 18.7%, and sister publication Skiing 15.2%. There were, however, two relative bright spots, as Field & Stream remained basically flat with a small decline of less than 1%, and Outdoor Life was down a modest 4.2%.

With their broader appeal, general fitness and sports titles did somewhat better, but results were still decidedly mixed. On the down side, Rodale titan Men's Health dropped 9.83%, with smaller niche titles like Cycle World down 20.6%, Fitness 25.4%, and Tennis 17.2%. But on the upside, some titles showed modest growth: Rodale's Runner's World was up 5.8%, Running Times 6.2%, Bicycling 1.7%, and Muscle & Fitness almost 3%. Various golf titles (Golf, Golf Week, Golf World and Golf Digest) were basically flat or up slightly.

Niche publications focusing on motor sports, with an overwhelmingly young male audience, have seen ad pages tumble, too. Here, Dirt Rider is down almost 8%, Four Wheeler 15.4%, and 4-Wheel/Off-Road 19.4%. A relative bright spot is Motorcyclist, down only 1.6%.

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