BusinessWeek redesign will stem drop in ad sales

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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