Its not just newspapers that are feeling the chill in America. So are magazines. In the second quarter this year ads in magazines dropped more than eight per cent.
Last year, according to the Publishers’ Information Bureau, ad pages declined only slightly Then fell over six per cent on the first three months this year.
The biggest drop was in ads for cars and other vehicles. then for computers and related equipment.
Auto ads in the first six months were down a whopping 21 per cent, technology ad pages fell more than 17 per cent.
What this translates into dollars is not yet known – but is expected to be more than usual because in hard times magazines usually give bigger discounts.
Despite the economic crisis, ads for luxury goods were not down as much as feared. In such magazines as Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Architectural Digest and National Geographic Traveler they were up.
News mags were battered. Ad pages in Time were down 21 per cent, Newsweek almost 23 per cent and Business Week almost 15 per cent.
Several big circulation magazines were hard hit – among them Reader”s Digest, Cosmopolitan, Ladies’ Home Journal and Family Circle each lost more than 14 per cent of their ad pages.
Another indication of the hard times in the magazine world. Last year 219 new magazines were launched – a drop of almost 25 per cent over 2006.
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