Biz magazines ad sales sluggish in January

Advertising sales for business magazines in January continued to be sluggish, with many of the major publications falling, according to data from the Magazine Publishers of America. This comes off a 2006 in which the revenue for the 14 biz glossies was down slightly and pages were off as well,

Ad sales for the Economist, Wired, and SmartMoney, for example, were up, but ad sales for BusinessWeek, Forbes, Fortune, Business 2.0 and others were down.

Here are some of the highlights, and lowlights, in alphabetical order:

— Business 2.0 saw its ad sales fall 29 percent to $3.4 million in the first month of the year. Its ad pages fell 33 percent.

— BusinessWeek also saw a decline in January, with ad sales down 11.8 percent to $17 million and pages off 15.7 percent.

— The Economist saw its ad sales rise 18.6 percent to $6.6 million for the month, and its ad pages increased 1.3 percent to 155.

— Forbes saw its ad sales drop 10 percent to $16.3 million for January, while its ad pages fell 17.4 percent to 143.38.

— Fortune saw its ad sales fall 6.7 percent to $10.5 million. Its ad pages fell 12.3 percent.

— SmartMoney’s ad sales rose 22.8 percent to $4.4 million, and its ad pages jumped 14.7 percent to 54.33.

— Wired’s ad sales rose 20.8 percent to $6.1 million, and its ad pages climbed 9.3 percent to 94.14.

In comparison, ad sales for the entire magazine industry were up nearly 6 percent in January. See all of the data here.