Some genres, however, are much healthier than others and over the last decade the differences have become even clearer. The Publishers Information Bureau collects ad page and dollar figures for companies representing 85 percent of consumer magazine advertising volume in the United States.4 [1] To examine their data, we organized the magazines by genre along the same lines as Mediamark.5 [2]
A clear picture quickly emerges, and news magazines are the big loser. Ad dollars and pages are increasingly going to places other than news magazines. Some of the reasons for the shift are fairly obvious. The segmentation that hit television with cable and grew with the Internet hit the magazine industry earlier. Many of the new books that appeared from 1980 forward were niche service magazines aimed at specific groups, like Bicycling, PC Magazine or Lucky, the last a magazine aimed at shoppers.
The numbers show the explosion and fragmentation. In 1980 there were 103 magazines listed with the Publishers Information Bureau. By 2003 there were nearly 250, with most falling into the service magazine niche.6 [3]
At first glance it may seem unfair to compare news magazines with the other genres here. News magazines, after all, are just one segment of a large industry and was bound to take a hit with the explosion of other genres and niches. (See Usage) But despite the explosion of magazines, the entertainment/pop culture genre still managed to increase its overall share of the ad pages.
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Publisher’s Information Bureau, 1980 annual report
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Publisher’s Information Bureau, 2002 annual report
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1980 - 2002
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Publisher’s Information Bureau annual reports
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1980 - 2002
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Publisher’s Information Bureau annual reports
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Even with a steady number of publications, however, news magazines should not have seen ad pages decrease the way they did. The growth simply was not there for many of the big news magazines. Compare ad pages in some of the bigger magazines in 1992 and 2000, for example. In 1992 Newsweek had 2,109 ad pages and U.S. News had 2,170 pages, while People had 3,281 pages. In 2000, Newsweek had 2,415 pages (an increase 15 percent) and U.S News had 1,857 (a decrease 14 percent), but People had 4,227 pages (an increase of 29 percent).7 [8]
The growth in entertainment and lifestyle magazines is striking, especially since 1995. The number of ad pages has grown by nearly a third since then and ad dollars have grown by more than 80 percent. Since 1980, ad revenues have increased 500 percent for that segment, compared with just 300 percent for news magazines.8 [9]
The rise of entertainment and lifestyle has been stable and consistent. And though there have been some notable flameouts, such as George and Talk, the genre overall has not only grown, it has produced spin-offs as well. Time Warner's People magazine alone has led to the creation of Teen People, In Style and People En Español.
In fact, while Time Warner has launched five entertainment titles listed on the PIB list in the last 15 years (the above titles and Entertainment Weekly), it has not begun a single new news magazine.
Business Magazines
Business magazine ad dollars grew more as well, rising from $262 million 1980 to $1.5 billion in 2002, a nearly six-fold growth. Nevertheless, as was evident in the hit these magazines took in 2001, this genre's fate seems more closely tied to the overall health of the economy and the stock market. Case in point is the unreal spike in pages and dollars that business publications enjoyed in 2000. It can be best understood by looking at the flash and crash of a single magazine, The Industry Standard. In 2000 it had more ad pages than any magazine listed with the PIB.9 [10] By 2001 it had folded. In other words, good business is good business for these magazines. When the bulls are running and stocks are rising, investors want to know the value of their portfolios. When the bears are playing, people would probably rather read about anything else.
For the magazine industry as a whole, however, the changes over the past 20 years can be understood simply, the ad growth the industry as a whole experienced has the least effect on news magazines. In 1980 news led the three genres in ad dollars, with pop culture/entertainment close behind and business a distant third. In 2002, news was in third, fairly close to second-place business and many lengths behind the leader, pop culture/entertainment.