Leon Lazaroff of Bloomberg writes Thursday that the BusinessWeek redesign launching Friday is an attempt to stem dropping ad sales at the weekly business publication.
Lazaroff wrote, “The changes mark a renewed effort by BusinessWeek to capture advertisers targeting affluent, educated readers, counter a drop in auto ads and define its place in a news cycle shaped by the Internet and 24-hour cable TV. The typical BusinessWeek reader is about 46 years old, with a median annual household income of $86,000, according to New York-based Mediamark Research Inc.
“‘Business magazines want very much to remain relevant, especially with younger readers, and that’s harder to do,’ said Reed Phillips, managing partner at DeSilva & Phillips, a New York investment bank focused on media. ‘They also want to demonstrate to advertisers that they remain relevant despite publishing once a week or once every two weeks.’
“Advertising sales at BusinessWeek declined about 15 percent to $67.7 million last quarter from a year earlier, the New York-based Publishers Information Bureau estimates. McGraw-Hill, based in New York, doesn’t break out the publication’s sales.
“Business magazines have been hit by the decline in U.S. auto sales, which led to a 5.1 percent drop in the number of magazine ad pages purchased by the industry in the second quarter, according to the bureau.”
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