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Magazine Ad Pages Fall, But Revenue Slightly Up in October
Business titles mostly up. Financial marketers continue spending surge. Tech marketers remain tight-fisted.
From AICPA Custom Media Solutions

It was a mixed bag for magazine advertising in October, as the Publishers Information Bureau reported that total rate card-reported ad revenue increased 3.5 percent from a year earlier to $2.4 billion, while ad pages dropped 2.1 percent. Many media experts say actual pages, not revenue, provide a more accurate picture of the health of the print magazine business. If your pages are holding steady or growing right now you might want to bring this up with your CFO.

Year-to-date ad revenue has risen 7.2 percent, and ad pages were up a third of a percentage point, according to Publishers Information Bureau figures.

For the month of October, five major advertising categories increased their revenue and pages compared with October 2004, including Retail; Food & Food Products; Financial, Insurance & Real Estate (+22.7%); Drugs & Remedies; and Toiletries & Cosmetics. Technology, another widely watched category for CPA Marketing Insider readers declined less than one-tenth of one percent from October 2004.

Experts say competition to sell investment and retirement planning services to aging Baby Boomers is driving much of the surge in financial services advertising. “This spending increase is not at all surprising” Baruch College marketing professor, Gary Soldow, told USA Today earlier this week. “The issue of retirement is looming in major proportions as the first of the Baby Boomers turn 60.”

Ad spending in financial services was up 7.2 percent for the first half of this year according to advertising research firm, TNS Media Intelligence.

Financial services advertisers “almost feel like they are in an arms race to keep pace,” added Thomas Cline, marketing professor at St. Vincent College. “Consumers see four time more advertising than they did 10 years ago. “Financial services marketers are saying ‘we’re going to spend what everyone else spends because there is more clutter out there.’”

As for widely watched business titles, October was a pretty encouraging month, with the exception of BusinessWeek, whose ad revenues fell 14 percent. Forbes’ ad revenue was up 46 percent, The Economist’s rose 7.7 percent; and Fortune’s climbed 6.1 percent.

Year to Date PIB measured Ad Pages and Revenue
(through October 2005):