TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
The second three months of 2009 was a disaster in the business magazine sector, as no publication reported an increase in advertising revenue or an increase in ad pages.
The overall magazine industry saw a 22 percent decline in ad revenue and a 29.5 percent decline in ad pages, according to data from the Publishers Information Bureau. But it was worse among the 15 business glossies — only four beat the overall industry in terms of the ad revenue decline, and just six topped the decline in ad pages.
The best performer for the quarter was Fortune Small Business, which reported a 7.8 percent drop in ad revenue to $13.1 million and an 8.9 percent decline in ad pages to 115.92.
Black Enterprise was the next best performer in ad revenue, as its ads brought in $7.6 million for the quarter, down 16.6 percent. Its ad pages fell 23 percent to 163.22.
Among the bigger titles, The Economist fared the best, with a 19.6 percent drop in ad revenue to $27.6 million for the quarter. Its ad pages fell 26.9 percent in the quarter to 473.81.
The worst performer for the quarter was Fortune, which saw its ad revenue fall 42.9 percent to $46.7 million. In comparison, Forbes‘ ad revenue declined 35.3 percent to $63 million, while BusinessWeek‘s ad revenue dropped 30.1 percent to $43.9 million.
In terms of ad pages, Fortune declined 45.4 percent to 385.79, while Forbes fell 39.8 percent to 482.73 and BusinessWeek dropped 34.3 percent to 331.70.
See all of the magazine data here.
