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!
It's difficult to publish a posh design magazine when there's nothing to put the design on.
There's a reason shelter books are folding.
Who can afford this stuff?
The Reaper gets its best design ideas from Highlights, and I do not worry about that going out of business anytime soon.
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."
The end of the year brings Secret Santa, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, and a lot of dying magazine rumours. With Kirkus Review now down in the cold ground (E&P does not count because it moved from magazine to web a few years ago), it feels like others could be following soon. So let's sit by the fireplace and read these letters, shall we? No names please!
Please remember that these are just letters. We print all confirmations and denials, as you know!
RE: "Casino Player" and "Strictly Slots"
You might want to look into those. Websites down, all numbers constantly busy, no returned emails.
Yes, it does seem the web sites for these two magazines are out of commission. With the news today that 43 Las Vegas casino hotels with rooms for less than $40 a night, these magazines may have rolled their last dice.
MAGNET magazine is on hiatus and they do not know when they will be able to get another print edition out.
RE: Motorcycle Magazines Near The Edge
Lots of bad news for several of the motorcycle magazines these days. Ads are WAY down, newsstand sales are in the dumps and the
subscription rates keep dropping. If they get any lower they might pay you to
subscribe!
Wonder how long a few of them have to ride?
I’d add a few to your watch list in this order of decline:
Walnecks
Barnett’s Cycle (just dropped from 10 issues a year to
4)
IronWorks
Street Chopper
2 Wheel Tuner
And I’d keep an eye on the once all-powerful Easyriders and V-Twin. They are now combining their circulation and passing it off as “real” to advertisers and not mentioning the blend.
Akin to the niche hot rod and performance car magazines which have been picked off in the past year, these titles are primo targets for El Reaper.
Any magazine that describes itself as being for the "upscale lifestyle, including travel, dining, wealth management, luxury automobiles, mountain and beach life, and fashion" must have a huge target painted on its back.
When Atlanta Peach folded, this could not be far behind.
You know you are screwed when you can't exist as a magazine for affluent people and you can't exist when poor people can't buy you either.
Seed magazine, the seemingly positioned "Vanity Fair of science," has announced it has stopped selling advertisements,says Mediaweek.
Was that on purpose?
Seed has not appeared since June and its founder said that although its future frequency has not been decided, the next issue will not carry any ads.
Now, the Reaper had Seed marked for death this past August and its certainly looking like its kinda dead. Or on life support, at least.
However, somebody had better tell the founder that when your magazine hasn't appeared in five months and you don't know when your next issue will come out, if ever, it's doubtful you're going to be getting ads anyway. Some <cough> "wunderkind."
They wanted an adventure, so The Reaper obliged. Dress warmly is my advice.
National Geographic is bailing out of its spin-off magazines quickly. In this economy, if people want snow, they'll take their sleds and zoom down the hills at the local school. See that helicopter on the cover? The closest anybody is coming to one of those these days is playing Call Of Duty: World At War.
So out goes Adventure and NatGeo Traveler is being shopped, according to recent reports.
We'll be down to the core product of little rhesus monkeys and naked African children in no time.