According to the Publishers Information Bureau, magazines lost 58,340 ad pages in 2009.
Hearst lost almost 3,400 pages, led by those rich folks' books Town & Country and Veranda.
Conde Nast lost more than 8,000 ad pages, led by the still alive Architectural Digest, W and Conde Nast Traveler.
Hachette lost 1,661 ad pages, with Elle Decor leading the way down.
Meredith was actually up 355 pages, so don't doing anything stupid if you sell ads there.
Time to shake off the cobwebs and recover from that hangover. Miami is just not the Reaper's style as my skin tone does not improve.
Looking back at the wreckage of 2009, it's time to post the magazines which had the largest percentage drops in advertising pages that are still alive, somehow.
Topping the list is one of the Reaper's favorites, Power & Motoryacht, with an impressive 57.3% loss in ad pages, according to Mediaweek.
Take a good look at the cover. Do you know anybody who really wants to show off one of these things in the past 18 months? That is, if they haven't lost a bundle already? The boat shows are coming up shortly. Taking any bets on attendance?
Power & Motoryacht -57.3%
Architectural Digest -49.9%
Veranda -47.7%
W -45.9%
Town & Country -45.6%
You better watch out,
You better not cry,
You better make money,
Or you're gonna die.
The Reaper is coming to town.
It's making a list,
And checking it twice,
Nobody is safe,
Even Cathy Black or Si.
The Reaper is coming to town.
It counts ads when you're closing.
It knows when you're a flake.
It knows when your newsstand is bad or good,
So sell through for goodness sake!
Oh, you better watch out,
You better not cry.
If you thought this year sucked,
The next, you're gonna fry!
The Reaper is coming to town.
The Reaper is coming to-o-o-o-o tow-w-w-wnnnn!!!!
Happy holidays everybody!
Mediafinder.com, via Crains NY Business, shows that The Reaper is actually slowing down and may find some vacation time soon: 367 magazines closed so far in 2009, and that's down from 573 in 2007.
Prize under-statement goes to Trish Hagood, president of Oxbridge Communications, parent company of MediaFinder: "This is not a propitious time to launch a magazine."
Samir Husni, always the last man standing on the subject of magazine launches, has come out with his annual list of notable launches.
What's notable about these launches is their high mortality rate. Landing on Husni's list is often the kiss of death.
Does being "notable" mean you have a chance to avoid the breadline? Nah, it just means you got a lot of publicity. Seriously, that's the first criteria he mentions for the honors: how much publicity did the magazine generate?
After the legendary debacle of Talk magazine's Liberty Island launch party, you would think the University of Mississippi professor would not put much stock in publicity. But nope, it's all about being, uh, "notable." Okay, it's noted.
Another well-researched criteria to be Notable: "Was the magazine so bizarre it had to be included?"
Take a good long look at this list and ask yourself, how many of the magazines are going to be around in two years? Could you have put together the same list by going to the Barnes & Noble magazine stand, closing your eyes and throwing 15 darts and seeing what they landed on? I've featured some of the good professor's quotes about the titles and a few comments of my own.
* Food Network Magazine (Most Notable Launch of the Year, whatever that means)
* Afar ("It is definitely not your father’s travel magazine.")
* Blurt (“Here is another music magazine that ignores Top 40s and tries to tip the scales for lesser-known and independent groups." Isn't Paste the same magazine that's trying to raise money by begging its readers?)
* Cesar's Way ("This is just another magazine that needed to extend its brand from television to print to preach the message of the 'dog whisperer' across ink and paper the same it does on the pixels of the screen." It's... ma-a-a-agic!)
* Disney 23 ("Membership pays. Here is a magazine that knows its audience well enough to produce content exclusively for the huge Disney fans. In fact, it is so exclusive, that the fans have to shed $15.95 for every single issue." Does this have anything to do with that Jim Carrey movie and the mystical power the number 23 has?)
* Fresh Home ("The Reader’s Digest network overseas had a wealth of information just ripe for repurposing to better fit the American market.")
* Guitar Aficionado ("Guitar Aficionado does for guitars what Cigar Aficionado did for cigars.")
* Jacques ("a photo-driven, coffee table erotic publication")
* Mine ("This is one of the best examples of how technology will impact the future of print. Instead of killing print, technology is actually enhancing the printed product by helping the folks at Time, Inc. create a magazine especially for readers in its content and advertising." These two sentences just impacted the future of coherence.)
* Prestige ("Against all odds, amidst the worst economy in decades, yet another magazine tries to break into the upscale market in New York City. The folks at Prestige deserve notable status simply for the courage it takes to crack into this market." Noted. Now I hope you have very,very deep pockets.)
* Ranger Rick's Just For Fun (“Children don’t read, right? Apparently they do because new children’s magazines are launched year after year. At some point magazines like Just for Fun are going to finally debunk this terrible myth.")
* Rebel Ink ("These magazines aren’t just about tattoos any more, they are about the people who have them.")
* Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade ("How many celebrity chefs can you take from the Food Network and create magazines around?")
* Barack Obama titles ("With the election of the first African-American president, the newsstands saw an explosion of an almost countless number of magazines centered on Barack Obama. The sheer volume of these titles and importance of this event in history makes these magazines notable.")
* Michael Jackson titles ("Magazines like these may be quick “one-night stand” titles that don’t bring in many return customers, but they still show the power of ink on paper.")
With all the bids due on Business Week today, this is an ideal time to present our Fall 2009 Preview of Magazine Deaths To Come.
And what a day it is. The McKinsey consultants have completed their audit and Conde Nast may actually be cut down in size to a normal publishing company. A Business Week memo leaked out promising 20% staff cuts. Poor Jon Fine (actually, not so poor) may not have a place to return to after he and his wife take off on sabbatical traveling the world in search of the one or two most interesting media personalities in Slobovia. Everybody is running for cover.
So the Reaper has sharpened its blade to look ahead at what magazines are most likely heading for the graveyard this fall. It's a perfect storm of lost ads and sinking newsstand, and the Reaper is waiting to see who goes overboard first.
CONDE NAST: Forget the elimination of petty perks like replenishing the pencil supply. Does the world need two foodie magazines and three bridal magazines, which are all down by huge numbers of ad pages, published by the same company? Gourmet (-42%), Bon Appetit (-31.9%), Brides, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride (-39.2%) are all very likely suspects to join the Reaper. W magazine, a pick-up from Fairchild, is staggering and redundant with a 46% ad page loss. Teen Vogue is the last teen mag standing, but that hasn't helped them either (-35.5%).
KIPLINGER'S PERSONAL FINANCE VS. SMART MONEY: While everybody has been focusing on Business Week's sale, they forgot about the number two and three books in the personal finance/business category. Put in perspective, Business Week averages about 27 to 28 pages a week, and they are losing a ton of money. Kiplinger's and Smart Money carry about the same amount of ad pages every monthly issue. How long can they fight a losing battle on that kind of revenue with personal finance advice being pushed out on the web on a daily basis by every yahoo, like Yahoo's Personal Finance section?
LIFE & STYLE: Most likely victim of the oversaturated gossip market. With newsstand off 7% and ad pages almost down 35%, Bauer could be better off putting all its celebrity eggs in the In Touch basket.
BOATING, POWER & MOTOR YACHT: Vroom! Vroom! Pfffftttttt. Kill the engine. The deadly duo which are primed to sink in an ocean of lost ad pages and readers. Boating magazine has already shed nearly 47% of its ad pages from last year. Brunswick, which owns outboard motor company Mercury Marine, has lost 80% of its sales. According to the trade rag Soundings, "The total fiberglass market for all lengths was down 30.6 percent on 53,210 units for the quarter. Ski boat sales dropped 32.3 percent to 2,807 units. Deckboat sales were down 39.2 percent on sales of 2,277 units."
THE SHELTER CATEGORY: How about playing a game of "... And Then There Were None?" The leading ad pages losers are Architectural Digest (-49.3%), Veranda (-47.3%), and the independent San Francisco-based Dwell (-45%). Sadly, this last one seems like the one to go with no big sugar daddies to provide a multi-title safety net. It's only a matter of time before AD editor-in-chief Paige Rense, who is already in the rumor mill to be pushed out, devotes those beautiful color pages to mansions in foreclosure.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELER: High priced travel is out, businesses are ordering employees to go coach, airlines are cutting back flights and hotels are sitting empty. NG Traveler sits behind Conde Nast Traveler and Travel + Leisure, who are both suffering badly (especially the former), making them a likely Reaper victim.
TOWN & COUNTRY: Is flaunting wealth a cultural paradigm of the past? Hearst can easily pull the plug on this old school paean to crazy money (down almost 48%), which seems past its prime.
CREAKY RIGHT WING AND LEFT WING MAGAZINES: The National Review in one corner, and the New Republic in the other. Vanity projects? Absolutely. The New Republic has the distinction of carrying the mighty total of seven -- yes, that is the number 7 -- ad pages in the September 7th issue. That's the sort of reverse karma from the Beatles on 9/9/09. Don't laugh, National Review, you've got 15.
MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: Ah, leisure reading for the Mensa crowd. However, stupid people rule in the United States, so the best they could come up with is 21 ad pages for their September/October issue. That's 10.5 ad pages a month. It's time to call in Mr. Peabody and Sherman!
LATE BREAKING NEWS: Magazine overboard! Bonnier has sunk Boating Life magazine and is offering Boating subscriptions in its place. The Reaper thinks this is just the warm up act.
From the Reaper's mailbag.
According to a Portfolio staffer, some have taken to toasting the news of the magazine¹s closure with a Stella Artois, the official beverage of magazine closings.
For those of you at home keeping score, this just in from MarketingCharts.com:
More than 525 US magazines ceased publication in 2008, and 40 have already folded in 2009 as the downturn in the economy continues to heavily impact most forms of print media, according to MediaFinder.com.
The regional magazines category suffered the largest decline in 2008, losing 33 titles. The travel category lost 18 titles. The next largest category losers were home and automotive, both losing 17 publications each in 2008.
Looking back to 2007, 591 magazines ceased publication. As in 2008, the regional category had the most casualties, with 37 ceased publications. Crossword puzzle and college student press had 22 and 20 now-defunct magazines, respectively.
