Top 5 Monthly Mags, Year-End Totals
Friday, November 14, 2008

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For this week's top 5, we looked at monthly magazines' year-end totals. Out of the 164 monthlies that we track in min, only 27 actually gained from January through December of 2008. Based on 500 or more ad pages, these are the top five with the highest percent gain. Six-year-old Time Inc. mag Style Watch (People) ended up on top with a 35% increase in ad pages. Fast Company and Wondertime were each up by nearly 24%, while Women's Health and American Media's muscle mag Flex enjoyed increases of 12.5% and 11%, respectively.

Also doing well in 2008 is Cookie (a bimonthly in 2007), which saw an increase of nearly 11% and Conde Nast Portfolio (which did not start tracking their numbers until their monthly launch in September 2007).

We know the primary reason for low ad page numbers: the meltdown on Wall Street caused by the banking/brokerage collapse. The impact spread this fall like a prairie fire, and with many companies at or on the verge of bankruptcy (Circuit City and General Motors are now the most notable), it is no surprise that advertising is crumbling and magazine staffers are getting laid off. Only 2001's -7.54% differential is recently comparable, but that cause--the September 11 attacks--was not American-made. This is...and the economy turned a soft 2008 into a horrific one.

December's -17.83% differential is comparable with December 2001's -17.36%, when the first post-September 11 impact was felt. Here, the biggest impact was Condé Nast Media Group president (since August 2004) and min magazine's 2008 Consumer Executive of the Year Richard Beckman's decision to suspend Movies Rock, which benefited 12 CN magazines last December. (Vogue's MR data were not included.) But the slew of non-CN magazines below -20% in December is frightening, with Real Simple's -38.69% the most symbolic. It was one year old in 2001 and thrived, in part, because Americans yearned for home, family, and simplicity. Business is less "simple," now. Crunching the monthlies' year-end numbers: just 27 finished up in 2008 ad pages; 138 finished down.

Click here for the full chart in this week's issue of min.

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