From AdAge: Full story here

Ad Pages Up for Fashion Magazines' Important March Issues

Vogue's March Issue Includes 443 Ad Pages

Most fashion magazines increased ad pages in their important March issues again this year, showing some strength in an uncertain economy.

Vogue's March issue includes 443 ad pages, nearly 4% above the year-ago level, the magazine said today. That's on top of a gain of 50 pages, or 13%, last March, according to Susan Plagemann, Vogue's VP-publisher since January 2010. "That's significant for us," Ms. Plagemann said. "We also beat our five-year average by 4.5%."

The ad-page count of the Conde Nast title will most likely beat any of its competitors, as Vogue has been selling the issue since last fall. "It's like every March for us," Ms. Plagemann said. "It's intense. We go at it early."

Vogue sibling W sold 204 ad pages into the issue -- 25% more than for last March -- including 20 from Saks Fifth Avenue to start its program around W's 40th anniversary later this year. The magazine is continuing to benefit from a 2010 redesign under Editor-in-Chief Stefano Tonchi, according to Nina Lawrence, VP-publisher at W. "Stefano Tonchi's W is a very big success," she said. "Our growth rate is accelerating."

Because marketers use them to introduce new looks, fashion magazines' March and September issues have long commanded extra attention from advertisers and readers. Media observers sometimes weigh September issues to get across just how many pages they carry. March is the next-most important issue.

"Fashion has become a much quicker industry, and most designers create at least four collections a year," Ms. Lawrence said. "But their major introductions tied to the runway shows are spring and fall, tied to March and September issues. If fashion depended on people waiting to buy the next round because their clothes wore out, it wouldn't be an industry. Spring is the introduction of the new season that ignites the engine for consumers to spend."

Advertisers sometimes respond to a soft economy by moving planned ad pages into March from surrounding issues, but that's not the case at W, according to Ms. Lawrence. "March is up, but February was up and April will be up, so it's not like we sucked the pages out of other issues," she said. "Our March is not the exception. It's what we're doing right now."

Glamour, another Conde title, said its March issue will have 181 ad pages, over 5% more than last year. Expanding on the Social SnapTag program Glamour offered marketers in last September's issue, the magazine got 27 advertisers to include SnapTags with e-commerce capabilities.

Allure will have 143 ad pages in March, up 5% from its 20th anniversary issue a year earlier.

Elle magazine -- publishing its first March issue as a Hearst Magazines title -- is running 319 ad pages, 2% more than last March. Elsewhere at Hearst, Marie Claire said its March issue will carry 181 ad pages, up 31%. Cosmopolitan's 121 ad pages mark a 20% gain from a year ago, the magazine said.

Harper's Bazaar, whose redesign will be introduced in March, said ad pages in the issue are up 15.5% from last year, to 271.

Continued economic weakness has made business tougher for marketers and magazines stuck between economy and luxury, according to Carol Smith, VP-publisher and chief revenue officer at Harper's Bazaar since May.

"We needed to choose a direction, and the only one for a magazine and brand like Bazaar is to become a more luxurious experience," Ms. Smith said. "That isn't to say precious and unattainable but is to say that Vogue, Elle and InStyle can do battle in the mass arena. We will never win [there]. I love mass brands, so it's not that Bazaar isn't a wonderful home for Maybelline, but it's a wonderful home for Mercedes, too."

Time Inc.'s InStyle said it has sold 347 ad pages into its March issue, 13% more than last March, when it posted a 20% jump. "In this economic climate, advertisers remain confident in InStyle's ability to deliver," said Publisher Connie Anne Phillips.

People StyleWatch, another Time Inc. title, saw ad pages decline 7%, to 135, ending a 31-issue streak of year-over-year ad-page increases.

From MiN

Ad Pages Get Crushed, Down 25.6% in 2009
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Steve Smith

Bottom line? It really was as bad as it felt, but things may be bottoming. According to Publisher Information Bureau year-end counts, ad pages for the magazine industry were off 25.6% compared to 2008. That reflected a revenue drop of 18.1% as measured by rate cards. There were some signs of relief in the last quarter of the year when the ad page drop eased to a still-painful 21.6%.

It wasn’t all gloomy. As we have been reporting all year, not only were there titles that weathered the storm well, especially in the service content sector, but the food and food products ad segment actually spent 21.9% more in Q4 than in the same period in 2008 and on 9.8% more pages. Food was the only one of a dozen categories to show positive growth throughout the year. Nevertheless, in the fourth quarter of the year, some other segments showed a slowdown in the rate of decline. Household cleaners, pet foods and supplies, drugs, toiletries and fitness products all registered shallower drops from previous quarters this year, PIB reports. Of course, the comps are favorable for Q4 because by the end of 2008 many marketers had already started cutting budgets radically.

Among the magazines that did increase their ad pages substantially in 2009, People Style Watch was up 24.4%, OK Weekly +20.7%, Saveur +12.6%, Family Circle +11.5% and Scholastic Parent and Child +9.6%.

 

Another one from Min Online - Full Story here

Pretty interesting - this is the top 10 Monthly Magazines over the past 5 years, as measured by ad pages.

Top 10 Monthly Magazine Five Year Report (2005-2009) Title ytd 2009   % diff   ytd 2008   Diff.   ytd 2007   Diff.   ytd 2006   Diff.   ytd 2005 Style Watch  624.30  23.50  505.49  36.87  369.31   ---  --- ---  --- Saveur  379.71  12.27  338.21  -3.15  349.21  -1.27  353.71  -9.07  389.00  Family Circle  1,739.53  11.51  1,559.93  -13.73  1,808.14  10.56  1,635.37  8.88  1,501.98  Fitness  736.35  9.14  674.70  -22.62  871.90  11.32  783.21  -3.64  812.81  Flex  2,604.91  3.35  2,520.53  11.07  2,269.35  -3.28  2,346.21  16.14  2,020.16  Ladies' Home Journal  1,269.57  3.07  1,231.80  -20.34  1,546.28  0.13  1,544.34  -0.35  1,549.69  Muscle & Fitness  1,995.81  2.83  1,940.96  4.63  1,855.08  -2.08  1,894.51  14.58  1,653.39  Better Homes & Gardens 1,723.35  2.04  1,688.94  -17.62  2,050.09  4.74  1,957.33  -8.24  2,133.19  Antiques, The Magazine  848.50  1.25  838.00  -9.41  925.00  -4.59  969.50  2.48  946.00  More  917.94  1.24  906.74  -30.32  1,301.28  19.01  1,093.45  12.82  969.19

 

From MediaWeek. Full Story Here. But don't get too excited, if you are in print.

Broadcast TV will reap the lion’s share at $2.2 billion or 67 percent of the total, with $2 billion going to local TV, $150 million to cable and $50 million to network TV. Direct mail will get $650 million or 20 percent of the ad spend, followed by radio at $250 million or 8 percent, and newspaper at $95 million or 3 percent. Outdoor and the Internet are forecast to reach $55 million and $50 million, respectively.

Here is more:

"Political advertising will hit $3.3 billion in 2010, an 11 percent increase over 2008 (but a 4 percent decrease from 2006), according to a Wells Fargo Securities report released Wednesday (Oct. 21).

The ad windfall, more than 60 percent of which will go to local TV, will be fueled by the election of 37 governors, 38 senators, every member of the House of Representatives and issue advertising (which could approach $1 billion) on hot-button issues such as health care.

The factors affecting the 2010 forecast are similar to those that made 2006 ad spend of $3.4 billion a record year for political advertising."

 

From MarketingCharts.com - the top ten magazines who have folded this year. Read full story here.

So Far this year there have been 383 magazine closures and 259 new magazines started.

Part of the story:

 Top Magazine Closures This Year

Declining subscriptions, falling ad revenue and the shift to digital delivery and preference have  severely affected print publications’ viability during in 2009.  Earlier this year, MediaFinder.com reported that the number of magazine closures began to accelerate in Q209. And earlier this month, The Christian Science Monitor - which itself went from daily to weekly in 2009 - recently listed the top 10  magazines by circulation - based on MediaFinder’s numbers - that have folded so far this year:

1. Country Home - 1,200,000 circulation
2. Domino - 1,100,000
3. Nick (Nickelodeon) Magazine - 1,000,000
4. Gourmet - 977,000
5. Hallmark Magazine - 750,000
6. Travel & Leisure Golf - 650,000
7. Time Style & Design - 550,000
8. (tie) Cookie - 500,000
9. (tie) Best Life - 500,000
10. Condé Nast Portfolio - 450,000

This good news would be even better if Gannett had achieved these profits as a result of some systematic change in its approach to advertising. The AP story reports that sharp cost cutting measures were used to achieve the gains.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Gannett Co., the largest U.S. newspaper publisher and parent company to the Reno Gazette-Journal, used sharp cost cuts to deliver a higher-than-expected second-quarter profit Wednesday and offered a wisp of hope that the industry's advertising drought might be subsiding.

Although the report showed Gannett's revenue continuing to slide in the last quarter, its executives indicated advertisers are gradually spending a little more money on newspapers.

Gannett's long-sagging shares spiked 29 percent.