With ratings on Oprah Winfrey‘s OWN network sagging, the top brass at Hearst must be worried about the impact on the talk-show queen’s eponymous magazine.
O, the Oprah Magazine — the second-most profitable Hearst title behind Cosmopolitan — has been putting up less-than-impressive ad sales figures in recent months.
According to one former Hearst insider, “I think that the Oprah brand has gotten slightly weaker. Ratings are down significantly for the new network, and there is a sense some of the magic is gone.”
Most of the magazine publishing world had a dismal August, with ad sales down 7 percent for all monthlies, according to data appearing in the Media Industry Newsletter.
But O has fared even worse, posting a 31.4 percent drop to 81.4 ad pages. The steep decline pushed its ad-page tally into negative territory compared to last year, down 1.8 percent to 827 pages. Moreover, O’s September issue will be down 18.2 percent, to 126 ad pages, according to MIN.
The crucial September numbers — typically the biggest of the year for most women’s magazines — stood in stark contrast to Vogue, In Style, Glamour and a number of others that all rebounded from a grim August to post gains.
“O’s ad page performance is pretty consistent with what’s going on in the women’s lifestyle category — there is softness, especially in the food category, which is systemic to their business, not ours,” said an O spokeswoman.
Hearst is hoping that fans pining for her syndicated talk show, which aired its finale on May 25, will be more inclined than ever to pick up the magazine.
“The magazine is really the purest platform for Oprah’s message, and the best place for fans who miss the show to stay engaged with the brand,” said the O spokeswoman.
The semi-annual circulation figures that will be released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations in the coming weeks probably won’t tell a tale because the show was still on the air by the time the June figures were compiled.
Any adverse consumer reaction in terms of newsstand sales won’t show up until the second-half numbers are tallied and released early next year.
“This falloff could be tied to all the macroeconomic events out there affecting the economy,” offered Steve Cohn, MIN editor.
The company is attempting to bolster the brand and has enlisted the former talk show queen to lend her hand to the promotional efforts. In October, Oprah is set to participate in an “O You” event the company is sponsoring at the Georgia Convention Center in Atlanta that could gross $725,000 if it pulls in the expected 5,000 fans at $125 a pop.
If it’s any consolation to Hearst and Oprah, the other eponymous magazines are also struggling — albeit not to the same degree.
Martha Stewart Living’s ad pages were down 14 percent in August to 66 pages, which also pushed it into negative territory year to date at 632 pages, a drop of 1 percent.
The company, which has hired Blackstone Group to entertain offers for a strategic partner, declined to reveal its September numbers in advance of the release of quarterly earnings next week. Martha Stewart herself is slated to rejoin the board sometime in the next two months.
Meanwhile, EveryDay with Rachael Ray was hit with a 25 percent decline in August to 51 pages and is down a more worrisome 16.7 percent year to date. The parent company, Reader’s Digest Association, hired Morgan Stanley and Evercore to shop all or part of the company.
EveryDay still ranks as one of RDA’s crown jewels. It recently installed former Prevention Editor Liz Vaccariello into the top editorial slot and hired Paul Jowdy as the new publisher to replace Eva Dillon..
E-books
E-book sales are still booming, up 160 percent year to date, but the category is no longer outselling printed editions as it was earlier in the year.
That may change in the near future because numbers from the Association of American Publishers through May don’t reflect the impact of the recent decision by the bankrupt Borders book chain to liquidate all remaining 399 stores across the nation.
Paperback books have sold $473.1 million this year, making it the top- grossing category so far, according to the publishing trade group. That news comes even though paperback sales are down 17.9 percent year to date.
Year to date, e-book sales, including purchases through the Amazon Kin dle, the Barnes & Noble Nook and other devices, amounted to $389.7 mil lion, representing a 160.1 percent gain compared to the same five-month period a year earlier.
Adult hardcover books checked in as the third-largest category, with sales of $386.2 million.
E-books took off dramatically in the first few months of the year and surged to the top spot because many consumers were purchasing titles to go with the tablet readers they received as Christmas gifts.