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.

We deal with a lot of publications here at Mediabids on behalf of thousands of customers and, based on his earning statements, I don't think that McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt understands what goes on at his own papers. In his earnings report Pruitt said that the digital side of his products was growing but that print upsells (a combination print and online buy) were dragging down earnings. I suspect there is some creative accounting going on to arrive at this conclusion. Publications will tell you (McClatchy publications included) that they can give enormous discounts on print but they have to keep the online rate card intact. So if you buy a combination for, let's say $1,000, you think you are pending $600 on print and $400 on online, but when they generate a bill they will make it $900 online and $100 print (I am using these numbers as an example but propotionally they are pretty accurate). That doesn't mean that the advertiser only wanted to spend $100 in print or that they would have spent $900 online but publications bill out in that way to give someone like Pruitt a happy story to tell. I hope they don't believe that advertisers are actually willing to pay their online rates without the print side discounts.

Here is part of the story, from paidcontent.org:

Earnings Call: McClatchy’s Pruitt: Digital Growth Returns; But Print Upsells Still Drag Online Revs

After posting an online revenue decline of 2.9 percent in Q2, McClatchy (NYSE: MNI) was able to reverse that trajectory to see digital revs rise 3.1 percent in Q3. As print continues to decline—and McClatchy chairman and CEO Gary Pruitt didn’t surprise anyone on the Sacramento company’s earnings call by saying print would fall further in Q4—online is showing signs of more stability and, most importantly, more independence from print. “As online grows, we’re less vulnerable to print declines and we’ll be less burdened by print costs,” Pruitt said.

Unfortunately for McClatchy this time out, print upsells remained a particular drag on its web ads. Pruitt told investors that a little less than half of McClatchy’s web ads are pure online sales, not tied to print. It’s hard to say if it’s improved online sales on its own—plus its 14.4 percent stake in web recruiter CareerBuilder—or the decline of print, but just over 50 percent of McClatchy’s online help wanted revenues are directly from the web. Once the economy rebounds, that tilt in favor of online and away from print is expected to accelerate.

Full story here

 Here is the invitation to Mediabids' free teleseminar on October 15th. We do these monthly, all are welcomed.

Join publishing and advertising expert Ernest F. Oriente of PowerHour, LLC [ www.powerhour.com ], and Jedd Gould, CEO of Mediabids.com [ www.mediabids.com ] for a free PowerHour on October 15th at 3:30 p.m./eastern/New York time.  Since 1986 Ernest has owned, managed and coached [totaling 54,300 hours] 700+ leading publishing companies and their advertising sales teams, around the world--and is the author of SmartMatch Alliances.

Please join Ernest and Jedd on October 15th for a discussion focused on "Maximize Your Sales Database".  During this 60-minute conference call we will be discussing the points below plus fielding your specific questions:

1.  What are your sales database options as a publishing professional?

2.  What’s the most valuable information to have/keep in your sales database? What is the MacKay 66 and how does this relate to driving publication advertising sales?

3.  What fields in your sales database are key for sorting, producing reports and leveraging your sales database information?

4.  How will your sales database help you drive new advertising sales revenue, renew more existing advertisers and out-run your competitors? 

Registration Information
=================

When:  Thursday, October 15th

Please note, the above TeleForum starts at 3:30 p.m. Eastern/New York/Toronto time, which is

2:30 p.m./Central/Dallas/Winnipeg time

1:30 p.m./Mountain/Denver/Calgary time

12:30 p.m./Pacific/San Francisco/Vancouver time

11:30 a.m./Alaska time

Fee:  No charge

To register, please go to:  here

For additional registration information, please contact Mediabids.com at 800-989-0406 or E-mail

jpeterson@mediabids.com

Full Story from Marketing Charts here

"For the second quarter of 2009, total newspaper ad sales fell 29% to $6.8 billion, down from $9.6 billion last year, according to Q2 figures released by the Newspaper Association of America. 

As  evidence of the continued toll the recession is taking on the industry, online ad sales were significantly affected again this quarter, slipping 16% to $653 million. Online newspaper advertising declined 1.8% in all of 2008, but tumbled more than 13% in Q109.

Print Takes Hardest Hit

Total print advertising totaled $6.2 billion, a decline of 30% over the same period last year. Within the print category, national ads fell nearly 30%, while retail ads fell nearly 25%.

Classifieds ads took the biggest hit within the print category, falling a total of 40%. Job recruitment classifed ads declined 66%, the worst slide of any classified category. Automotive classifieds fell 43%, while real estate classifieds fell 46% for the quarter, the NAA said.

Newspaper ad losses have grown worse in each of the last 12 quarters, experiencing the worst declines in newspaper history, reports Media Buyer Planner.

For the first half, ad revenue fell 29%, to $13.4 billion. Ad revenue fell 28% in the first quarter.

The numbers, give perspective to what John Sturm, chief executive of the association, calls “a terrible stretch of bad road,” writes Mediaweek."