Statistics posted on the Magazine Publishers of America web site show that among the business glossies, Business 2.0, BusinessWeek, Fast Company and Money all had an incredibly bad month in June, while the other biz magazines showed gains.
And for the year, BusinessWeek has fallen behind Forbes in terms of ad dollars.
Fast Company’s ad sales declined 27.7 percent to $2.5 million, while Money’s ad sales fell 20.4 percent to $12.4 million.
On the other end of the spectrum, the Economist saw a 33.4 percent gain in advertising to $7.7 million in the month, while Forbes‘ June sales rose 21.2 percent to $31.9 million and Fortune saw a healthy gain of 18.9 percent to $22.4 million.
Inc. magazine had a 9.9 percent increase in ad sales to $7.4 million, while SmartMoney showed a 5.6 percent increase to $4.8 million in ad sales for the month.
See the June numbers here, and year-to-date numbers here. The six-month figures show that BusinessWeek is down by 11 percent for the year, and Fortune is down slightly, while Money is down by 5 percent and Fast Company is down 21 percent, but all of the rest of the business magazines have seen an increase in ad sales for the year. As all magazine reporters and editors know, more ad sales mean more pages in the book, which means more space for articles.
My interpretation of these numbers: BusinessWeek editor in chief Stephen Adler, who has been on the job for just more than a year, must be feeling some pressure to turn these numbers around. It’s been a given for quite some time that Fast Company has been struggling, but it’s a surprise to see BusinessWeek perform poorly against Forbes and Fortune.
In terms of ad dollars, Forbes outsold BusinessWeek in the first six months of the year, while Fortune is less than $1 million behind BusinessWeek. Last year, BusinessWeek outsold both of its business magazine competitors in the first six months of the year by more than $10 million.
The Star Tribune is seeking an accomplished, motivated and versatile journalist and leader to shape…
The Deputy AME-Business is responsible for the development and planning of coverage on all Newsday…
CNBC.com managing editor Jeff McCracken announced Friday the following promotions: In San Francisco, Ari Levy has…
This Newsday reporter will cover Long Island’s commercial real estate market and the region’s evolving…
The New York Times is looking for a versatile editor to edit enterprise and feature…
International editor Matt Lamers is leaving Marijuana Business Daily. He has been there for seven years. Lamers…
View Comments
Does anyone other than the author believe the ad revenue numbers can be gleaned by multiplying the posted page rates times the number of ad pages?
Based on more than 30 yers of experience in business and technology publishing, it's clear to me that while the ad page numbers are somewhat bogus, the ad revenue numbers from PIB are not even close to reality.
No one I know in the business puts any credence into the ad revenue dollars offered by PIB. Chris, i don't know but i have to ask, what makes you think the PIB revenue numbers have any relationship to reality?
I concur. I have worked in the magazine business for more than 15-years. The reported pages and 'open-rate' revenue figures are grossly over-estimated. The PIB results do not account for the negotiated ad rate, which can run anywhere between 20% and 50% of the open rate.
Also, the page counts become an issue with PIB. It allows for the inclusion of advertorial sections - those parts of a magazine which are 'sponsored' editorial.
While magazine publishers are feeling the pressures of new media, they remain relatively profitable albeit not as profitable as pre-2000. However, publishers have leveraged their content to the web, with stand alone sites.
Within the financial magazine categories, readers who invest generally require real-time information placing a pressure on magazines like Kiplinger’s. Business weeklies of course must re-adjust their editorial relevancy, since the Internet can provide nearly instant news content.
As such, those magazine publishers have beefed-up their online presence migrating a majority of their print readership to the web via e-newsletters to provide daily web updates. With this comes online ad revenue, not included in the PIB results.
NO more Business 2.0 magazine.
Bad news.