2004 Annual Report - Magazine Ownership

Why does the magazine ownership landscape look so different than other media segments? It is because there are really two tracks available to magazine publishers. There is the route of high-impact, mass-market, agenda-setting magazines - the magazine names everyone knows - largely the province of the three largest companies. And there is the route of smaller niche, news-you-can-use titles. Much of the growth in magazines over the past 20 years has come in these niche service magazines (See Economics). And many of the big magazine companies publish almost only these titles. International Data Group, the sixth largest magazine company, publishes only computer magazines such as PC World, Macworld and GamePro. Reader's Digest, the fifth largest, besides its famous main title, publishes Family Handyman and American Woodworker. Even Primedia, the fourth largest company, is, despite its high profile New York Magazine, really based on service titles like Wards Auto World, Home Theater and Shutterbug.⁴

The difference in magazine economics creates very different worlds among the 10 companies in the medium. The top 10 companies publish most of the magazine titles seen on newsstands. But it is the top three companies that hold the best-known books. Time Warner is home, of course, to Time, People, Sports Illustrated and Entertainment Weekly. Hearst publishes Cosmopolitan, Esquire and the hugely successful O, the Oprah Magazine. Advance owns all the Condé Nast titles - including Vogue, CQ, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker - plus Parade.

And, one could argue, that means that the magazine market in terms of content is even more concentrated than it first appears. Those top three companies control 45 percent of the revenues in the magazine market and also control what might be called the agenda-setting magazines in the areas of pop culture and business. They play important roles in shaping the national dialogue in these areas, which are the areas readers and advertisers are most interested in. They are the magazines cited by other media in the critical game of buzz.