• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, October 1, 2008

With the auto category causing turmoil for magazine revenues, it's not a bad time to be a publication that doesn't depend on it. And surfing/skating/extreme sports publication EXPN is riding that wave. 

The publication, which runs as a magazine within a magazine, has posted its highest revenue intake ever, with its just-published fall version. It runs twice a year as an insert inside ESPN The Magazine.

It has 18 advertisers, and just one automaker: Subaru. The rest are a combination of some endemics, such as surfwear company Billabong, and broader marketers, such as the Navy, Taco Bell and Schick. PowerBar and New Balance have just signed on.

One reason that EXPN may be prospering is its 12- to-29-year-old male target, which seems to have disposable income during the economic downturn. "They're as unaffected by this as you can be," said Steven Binder, vice president of ad sales at ESPN The Magazine.

A large chunk, Binder said, still don't own homes--so they're not subject to the mortgage crisis. Plus, they may not be saddled with car payments.

ESPN The Magazine has a circulation of some 2 million. Sub-mag EXPN is being distributed this month to 500,000 subscribers in the target demo, as well as within each copy at the newsstand.

Running twice a year, it debuted in 2005. Binder said it allows advertisers "to tap into a younger part of our circulation." The magazine is sold by the same staff as its parent. It draws some advertisers via package deals with ESPN's broadcasts of the X Games twice a year. Advertisers on the TV broadcast are required to buy pages in the twice-a-year EXPN (Taco Bell is an example.) Advertisers not on TV can buy the magazine exclusively.

Binder thinks the EXPN print franchise has the potential to grow, either by greater frequency or even as a stand-alone publication. Discussions internally are ongoing.

"I'd like a better ad market, as we all would," he said. "But that being said, I think it's a franchise that we can either expand in-book or we can create on its own."