The final advertising performance numbers for consumer magazines from the Publishers Information Bureau are in: PIB advertising revenue for rate-card reported magazines closed at $23.1 billion, an increase of 7.2 percent over 2004. Ad pages, however, gained a half a percent.
Among notable individual magazine performances, Cottage Living, in its first full year, pulled in $23.4 million in PIB revenue on 287.58 ad pages. Mansueto Ventures’ newly-acquired Fast Company (down 15.7 percent in revenue versus 2004 to $30.93 million, 20 percent in pages to 476.97 pages) and Inc. (down 7.2 percent in revenue to $77 million, 12 percent in pages to 927.82) continued to hemorrhage print ad dollars.
In a year that started with its namesake in a West Virginia prison;and ended with her inhabiting just about every media delivery vehicle this side of smoke signal;Martha Stewart Living’s PIB revenue increased 45 percent to $104.62 million on 910.68 ad pages, roughly 250 more than it had in 2004.
Time Inc.’s Real Simple was up 34.9 percent in PIB revenue and 15.3 percent in pages in 2005, but some of Time Inc.’s other signature titles had a particularly tough year. Time magazine (down 8.1 percent in revenue, 12.2 percent in ad pages) and Sports Illustrated (down 13.5 percent in revenue, 16.8 percent in ad pages) marked the company’s mixed bag of performance.
Teen Vogue (which doubled its revenue to $77.7 million on 1000 ad pages) and Elle Girl (up 77 percent in revenue, 46 percent in ad pages) continued to dust-up Teen People (flat at $66 million in PIB revenue, down 4.6 percent in pages) in the hotly contested celebri-teen category.
Among PIB-tracked magazines that were directionally-shifted, scaled-back or shuttered, U.S. News & World Report increased its revenue by 9 percent to 256.54 million, though its ad pages (-0.6 percent) remained flat. The shuttered Vitals Man and Woman earned a combined $8.5 million. TV Guide, which switched to a traditional format from its digest size, earned about $288 million, $28.5 million coming after the switch. Technology Review, which announced in October that it would become primarily a Web-only product, fell 34.5 percent in revenue and nearly 30 percent in ad pages.
SEE ALSO: PIB Jan-Dec 2005
