The glossy monthly magazines continue to make noise about the trend to digital versions of their brands — but ad sales at their bread-and-butter print editions for the most part are still eroding.
While most sectors saw declines, fashion titles were a bright spot, according to Media Industry Newsletter, due to release full-year ad page results today for the 100-plus consumer monthlies.
Overall, ad pages sold by the group fell 4.1 percent in 2012 from 2011, MIN reports.
InStyle finished No. 1 in ad pages sold — with 2,684, according to MIN.
“It was a case of fashion and the seven dwarfs,” said Steve Cohn, editor of MIN. He did note that the decline in December was under 3 percent, suggesting that erosion in print may be slowing down.
“I think the numbers are not terribly surprising given what has been happening with print the past few years, but they are balanced with significant gains in digital, on tablets and on smartphones,” said Chris Kevorkian, the chief marketing and digital officer for e MPA, the association of Magazine Media.
InStyle, edited by Ariel Foxman with Connie Anne Phillips, publisher, used a strong December issue with 302 ad pages, to finish atop the heap with a 5.47 percent increase from a year ago.
That December surge enabled it to nose out Condé Nast flagship Vogue, where editor Anna Wintour is teamed with publisher Susan Plagemann. Vogue had 2,601.21 ad pages, up 3.65 percent on the year.
Elle, edited by Robbie Myers with publisher Kevin O’Malley, had 2,453 ad pages, a 6 percent jump.
Harper’s Bazaar, edited by Glenda Bailey who teams with former Elle publisher Carol Smith, was up 11 percent on the year, to 1,838.12 pages.
W, thanks to a strong 40th anniversary issue in November, finished the year up 10.07 percent with 1,198 ad pages. Stefano Tonchi is the editor, but it just lost its publisher, Nina Lawrence, to the WSJ Magazine (owned by News Corp., which also owns The Post).
Other women’s magazines had a tougher go of it.
Glamour, normally the second-most profitable title at Condé Nast, dipped 3.82 percent to 1,445 while Cosmopolitan, usually the brightest star in the Hearst constellation, slipped 5.62 percent to 1,379.24.
Luxury magazines seemed to fare surprisingly well. American Express Publishing reported that its bimonthly, Departures, was up 12 percent on the year while Town + Country, edited by Jay Fielden, was up 6.45 percent — a nice sendoff for outgoing publisher Valerie Salembier.
Eponymous mags, for the most part, still struggled — although Everyday with Rachael Ray seemed to benefit from its shift to Meredith from Reader’s Digest. It posted a 3.86 gain in ad pages, to 608.
The lack of a daily syndicated TV show by Oprah Winfrey seemed to crimp O, the Oprah Magazine, where ad pages dropped 14.59 percent, to 1,161.18.
That decline wasn’t as big as that of Martha Stewart Living, which fell 29.04 percent to 766.58.
Allure was a standout at Condé Nast, jumping 18.43 percent to 1,396.55; meanwhile, Food Network Magazine shined at Hearst, jumping 17.27 percent to 1,041.35.
Budget blues
Condé Nast stills seems to be suffering aftershocks from the demoralizing budget cuts it was forced to make last month.
Laura Brounstein, who is the fashion and entertainment director at Self, is packing it in to leap across the Hudson to become editorial director of Bauer Publications’ teen titles, which include M, Twist and J-14.
“You don’t leave [Self Editor-in-Chief] Lucy Danziger unless it’s something really good,” said Brounstein.
Bauer, which owns celeb mags In Touch and Life+Style, makes most of its money from newsstand sales. The teen titles sell more than 800,000 copies a month collectively.
AMI jump
Even American Media, publisher of the National Enquirer, has been poaching from Condé Nast. Patrick Connors, who was the associate publisher of Glamour, is jumping to Men’s Fitness to replace John Grane
y, who was just given the heave-ho yesterday, sources said.
And that’s from a company that doesn’t expect to get back into its hurricane-damaged offices in downtown for up to three months.