From The Economist - full story here

Newspapers have escaped cataclysm by becoming leaner and more focused

Jun 10th 2010

“PRINT is going to live longer than people think,” asserts Mathias Döpfner, the boss of Axel Springer. Perhaps it will in central Europe. The publisher of Bild and Die Welt recently recorded the most profitable first quarter in its history. The profit margin on its German national newspapers is a startling 27%. The firm is expanding into Poland. If newspapers are in crisis, Mr Döpfner says, he likes crisis.

A year ago the mere survival of many newspapers seemed doubtful. It had become clear that the young, in particular, were getting much of their news online. Readers were flitting from story to story, rarely paying. Advertising too was moving online, but not to newspapers’ websites. Rather, it was being swallowed by search engines. The classified-ad market was ravaged by free listings websites such as Craigslist. A deep recession, received wisdom had it, would surely finish off newspapers, which have high fixed costs in the form of journalists and printing presses.

In some ways the pain proved even greater than analysts expected. The Newspaper Association of America reports that print and online advertising has fallen by 35% since the first quarter of 2008. Circulation has dropped alarmingly too. Yet almost all newspapers have survived, albeit with occasional help from the bankruptcy courts. American newspaper firms like McClatchy stayed mostly profitable even as revenues plunged (see chart). Some companies are now worth ten times as much as in the spring of 2009, although they remain far from pre-recession heights.

Steep cover-price rises have helped. But for the most part newspapers have cut their way out of crisis. In the past year McClatchy reduced payroll costs by 25%. Many publications closed bureaus and forced journalists to take unpaid leave. There have been clever adaptations, too. At Gannett, another American firm, 46 local titles now carry national and international news from USA Today, the firm’s national paper. A group of New Jersey newspapers jointly produces features and editorials. Bob Dickey, who runs Gannett’s community papers, says they have realised there is no need to work out what to say about the Gulf oil leak seven times.

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By The Associated Press (AP) – Feb 8, 2010

Average single-copy sales at newsstands and other retail sites for leading U.S. consumer magazines during the second half of 2009, among magazines that reported totals to the Audit Bureau of Circulations:

1. Cosmopolitan — 1,753,368 (down 1.4 percent)

2. People — 1,325,330 (down 10 percent)

3. Woman's World — 1,168,958 (down 4.9 percent)

4. First — 1,041,011 (down 6.4 percent)

5. Us Weekly — 812,089 (up 1.9 percent)

6. In Touch Weekly — 746,973 (down 10.5 percent)

7. Family Circle — 715,000 (down 9.4 percent)

8. In Style — 689,705 (down 6.8 percent)

9. O, the Oprah Magazine — 662,304 (up 5.8 percent)

10. Glamour — 587,677 (down 4 percent)

11. Lindy's Football Annuals — 580,509 (down 5.8 percent)

12. Star — 574,927 (down 6.8 percent)

13. National Enquirer — 562,292 (down 9.3 percent)

14. People Stylewatch — 536,934 (up 1.9 percent)

15. Woman's Day — 469,068 (down 7.2 percent)

16. Life & Style Weekly — 461,958 (virtually unchanged)

17. Men's Health — 438,238 (down 13.8 percent)

18. All You — 432,801 (down 1 percent)

19. Vanity Fair — 421,833 (up 5.1 percent)

20. Real Simple — 411,705 (up 6.2 percent)

21. OK! Weekly — 404,423 (down 17.5 percent)

22. Good Housekeeping — 395,289 (down 30.7 percent)

23. Seventeen — 392,262 (up 0.1 percent)

24. Every Day with Rachael Ray — 367,744 (down 3 percent)

25. Weight Watchers — 364,396 (down 2.1 percent)

Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations

New forecasts show 2010 may not be as bad as previously thought for magazines, however a decline is still projected.

From MIN Online. Full Story here

Barclays Predicts Ad Rebound, Easing Print Pain
Friday, January 29, 2010
Steve Smith

In a striking spot of optimism, Barclays Capital adjusted its estimates of U.S. marketing spending for 2010 upward considerably from previous predictions. For magazines in particular, the analysts changed an earlier forecast of -10% growth to only -3%.

Magazines are bouncing back ahead of newspapers, projected to be down 5.8%, although Barclays had last predicted that both print platforms would suffer equally this year. Overall analyst Anthony J. DiClemente is expecting a 3.5% increase in total ad spending led by TV advertising, which is likely to get a boost from the recent Supreme Court ruling that removes limits on corporate political spending. Total ad sales for the year could reach $167.6 billion this year.

“While we expect modest aggregate growth for local media advertising in 2010, we also expect national advertising to outpace the growth of local advertising and take share from local overall,” DiClemente wrote in his report.

DiClemente says that companies simply have to come back into the marketplace to hawk their goods, and that almost all platforms will benefit. Radio will rebound from a previous estimate of -4% to 2.2%, again because of more political expenditures. Outdoor advertising will see some of the greatest improvement, up 6% over an earlier call for flat growth. And the Internet, both local and national, will gain 8.9%.

Barclays is the latest ad market prognosticator to revise upward its view of 2010 spending. Earlier this month Interpublic’s Magna group declared that overall ad spending for the year would decline only .1% compared to an earlier forecast of a 1.3% drop. For magazines, however, Magna maintained a more pessimistic view than Barclays, expecting a 7.3% decline.

Magazine ad pages continued their slide in November. MediaBuyerPlanner reports that MIN's latest survey of ad pages sold in consumer magazines show that November ad pages were down 19.2% from November of 08. There are a few bright spots.

Of 171 titles MIN reported on, 84% saw ad pages decline for the month; 46% saw pages fall more than 20%, and 24.5% saw declines of 30% or more. Conde Nast’s W was one of the biggest losers, down 51% in ad pages, while Elle Decor was down 49%.

A few titles improved in November. People Stylewatch, for example, was up 32% in ad pages, and National Geographic was up 21.2%. Southern Living, More, Real Simple and Guns & Ammo also gained significantly in ad pages for the month.

MIN’s figures echo the third-quarter results recently released by the Publishers Information Bureau. Total ad pages for consumer magazines were down 26.6% for Q3 compared to the third quarter last year, per PIB. For the first half, ad pages were down 27.9%.

ZenithOptimedia’s latest ad forecast predicts that global ad spending will bottom out this year and will return to positive growth - though at just 0.5% - in 2010. Magazine advertising, however, will continue to decline for at least the next two years, ZenithOptimedia says.