US magazine ad revenues down 18%
New figures from the Publishers Information Bureau reveal that US magazine advertising revenues were down 18.1% in 2009, totalling $19.5 billion.
A total of 169,217.76 advertising pages were generated throughout the year, a drop of 25.6% compared to 2008, said PIB.
Ad revenue in the fourth quarter fell 12.4% year on year to $5.8 billion, with a 21.6% fall in ad pages leaving the total at around 49,000 ad pages.
The largest category, toiletries and cosmetics, saw advertising fall 3.9% to $2.4 billion in 2009, while the financial, insurance and real estate category suffered a largest decline, down 35%.
However, there was some good news, with several subcategories registering ad revenue and page increases in the fourth quarter.
Ellen Oppenheim, EVP/chief executive officer, Magazine Publishers of America, said: “While marketers’ skittishness continued through the fourth quarter, magazine spending showed improvement compared to earlier in 2009.
“Magazines experienced an uptick in food spending and relative improvement in other areas, especially in automotive.”
Looking at newspapers, recent figures from the Newspaper Association of America revealed that US newspaper advertising revenue, was down 28% year on year in Q3 2009, falling from $10.1 billion to about $6.4 billion.