Thursday, August 30, 2007

Business Magazines: Falling Now, Failing, when? (Off-topic)

From Media Life:
The year-to-date numbers for business and financial magazines are not good; in fact, they’re downright troubling for a category that many once considered an indicator of the general health consumer magazines.

Through second quarter, the most recent numbers released by the Publishers Information Bureau, ad pages for the nine business magazines tracked by Media Life were off 10.3 percent from last year, from 6,231.83 pages to 5,591.93. What’s more, revenue was off 3.3 percent, from $601,050,786 to $580,978,255 (see chart below).

Only two magazines in the category are showing ad-page growth, Fast Company and Inc. Business Week is down 12.6 percent, Fortune is off 17.5 percent, and Business 2.0 has slumped 34.1 percent, leading to rumors of a shutdown.

The category could certainly use a jolt, which perhaps explains the huge amount of attention given to recent launch of Portfolio and its promising number of ad pages. Steve Greenberger, executive vice president and media director at SLG Advertising in Greenwich, Conn., talks to Media Life about what's ailing the category, why Inc. and Fast Company’s gains may be fleeting, and his early thoughts on Portfolio.
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For the record Climateer Investing is now published using 100% recycled electrons.
HT: The Flack