Oxbridge Communications

Print magazine startups: Hope springs eternal.

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Marketing Communications , , , , , , , , , , , ,

print publicationsI’ve blogged before about the number of print magazine launches versus closures in the age of the Internet.

Now the latest report from media database clearinghouse Oxbridge Communications shows that when it comes to this most traditional form of media … hope springs eternal.

In fact, Oxbridge is reporting that in the first half of this year, new magazine start-ups outstripped those that ceased publication – and by a substantial margin.

The Oxbridge database, which includes U.S. and Canadian publications, shows that 93 magazines were launched in the first half of 2014, versus just 30 that were shuttered.

True, this represents a lower number of start-ups than is the historical average … but it’s also a lower number of closures.

What specialty audiences are being targeted by these new pubs?

In the continuation of an existing trend, there’s growth in new “regional interest” magazines such as 12th & Broad (aimed at the creative community in the Nashville metro area) and San Francisco Cottages & Gardens.

Food and drink is another category of growing interest, with publications like Barbecue America and Craft Beer & Brewing hitting the streets for the first time.

And why not?  Despite ever-changing consumer tastes and interests, all of us continue to share at least one fundamental trait:  We eat!

But on a cautionary note, the smaller list of magazine closures do include two vaunted “historic” titles:  Jet (Johnson Publishing) and Ladies’ Home Journal (Meredith).

These closures underscore the point that the magazine industry shakeup continues – and who knows what other famous titles might cease publication during the second half of the year.

As for the biggest reason behind the magazine closures … isn’t it obvious?  It’s decreased advertising revenue.

Continuing a trend that’s been happening for the better part of a decade now, Publishers Information Bureau reports that total magazine ad pages declined another 4% in the First Quarter of 2014 as compared to the same quarter of last year.

For the record, that’s 28,567 ad pages for all U.S. and Canadian publications.

While that figure may seem like a healthy total, it’s not enough to sustain the total number of publications out there.

The harsh reality is that print journalism remains dramatically more expensive than digital production.  Unless a magazine can obtain enough subscribers to justify its ad rates, the only other way it can survive is to cover its costs via a “no-advertising” business model.

The vast majority of subscribers will never pay the full cost to produce a print publication.  And with more free information resources than ever available to them online, many people aren’t particularly inclined to commit to even a subsidized subscription rate.

Indeed, the wealth of free information means it’s more difficult these days even to get qualified business readers to subscribe to free B-to-B pubs that target their own industry or markets.

What changing dynamics would portend a shift in the downward trajectory?  It would be nice to anticipate a bottoming-out followed by a turnaround.

Unfortunately, if the past five years have demonstrated anything, it’s that there may be no “natural bottom” when it comes to diminishing advertising revenues in the print magazine business.

Print Publications: Hanging In There?

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Print magazines are hanging in there.There’s one thing you can say about print magazines: They’re not giving up without a fight!

The latest evidence of this comes in statistics released by Mediafinder®, a magazine tracking service run by Oxbridge Communications. It turns out that in 2011, there were 239 print publications launched in the United States and Canada. That’s a 24% increase over 2010, when 193 magazines were launched.

And at the other end of the scale, the number of magazines that ceased publishing in 2011 decreased over the previous year: 152 versus 176.

Actually, new magazine startups as well as closings are down significantly from just a few years ago. The worst year was in 2009, when a whopping 596 print magazines closed (but also 275 were launched).

Reviewing the stats, it’s not hard to understand the dynamics as to why print magazines have been on the ropes. For starters, magazine newsstand sales have dropped by nearly 50% over the past decade. And ad pages in consumer magazines fell more than 30% just between 2006 and 2010.

And in 2011 year-to-date, ad pages are continuing to track a smidgen lower (-1%), but at least the trend is now nearly flat rather than steeply downward.

To be sure, magazines have tried different tactics to stem the slide. One of the more interesting moves has been by the publishing firm Meredith Corporation, which announced a plan in the summer to begin guaranteeing that advertisers’ magazine buys will yield an increase in sales for their products or services.

Dubbed the “Meredith Engagement Dividend,” the program represents a new level of accountability for “analogue” media, which long relied on fuzzier metrics like audience reach and before/after market research.

The publisher’s new program is available to advertisers who commit to a minimum level of advertising impressions annually across multiple Meredith magazine titles. It works by correlating Meredith’s magazine readers with Nielsen’s Homescan (National Consumer Panel) service. That’s the same marketing research resource many top consumer products firms use to measure their product sales.

The Nielsen/NCP database of ~85 million consumer magazine readers is used to correlate the effect magazine ads have on resulting product purchase behaviors.

Meredith claims the research shows that advertisers in four key categories – household goods, beauty products, OTC drugs and food – have increased their product sales an average of 10% via ads placed in the Meredith publications. That claim is based on measuring the sales impact of “higher frequency” ad campaigns that ran during 2009 and 2010.

It’ll be interesting to see how the performance of print magazines evolves over the next few years. For now, the steep slide appears to have ended, but there’s no real evidence of a turnaround. The question is whether publishers can adjust their operating models to continue to work within the new, lower level of business activity.

Maybe they’ll succeed. You know … hope and change and all that.

Mag Drag: The midyear report on magazine closings says it all.

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The “gone for good” list has been compiled for the first half of 2009 … and it looks pretty grim for the magazine industry. In fact, Oxbridge Communications’ Media Finder, a database that tracks U.S. and Canadian periodicals, reports that a record 279 magazine titles ceased publication during the first half of the year.

The news that 187 new magazines were actually launched over the same period is little consolation. The net loss of 92 magazines is more than ever, and demonstrates all too clearly how the recession has hit key market sectors particularly hard – finance, automotive, fashion and several others that have traditionally been major contributors of advertising revenue to print publications.

Which categories of magazines fared worst over the past six months? Media Finder’s data show that “regional interest” publications suffered the most casualties, with 27 magazines in that category folding. “Lifestyle” publications were also hurt, with 14 titles biting the dust. And magazines catering to the construction business and related segments were also hit hard, no doubt reflecting the depressed real estate and housing market.

What’s particularly interesting about the YTD 2009 list of shuttered magazines is that many of them were well known in their category and boasted significant circulation. Certainly, periodicals like Country Home, PR Week, Portfolio, Nickelodeon, Hallmark Magazine and Teen weren’t slouch publications by any means.

What can we expect for the rest of 2009? Is the worst over? Seeing as how the economic recovery is (optimistically) still months away, you’d have to bet on additional magazine titles folding during the second half of the year – including a few more of the big ones.

And we’re certain to see editorial format and other changes being made to some of the more famous publications (such as Newsweek’s recent makeover) in a bid to reestablish their relevance and maintain their financial viability.