Media

People is best in ad pages as print mags stabilize

People topped all consumer magazines in ad pages in 2013 for an unprecedented 11th year in a row.

Just-released statistics show the magazine industry, drained of ad dollars since the Great Recession, seemed to be finally stabilizing.

People racked up 3,183.46 ad pages last year, up 0.9 percent from the previous year. (The numbers weren’t enough to save top editor Larry Hackett, though, who was ousted Friday in a corporate shakeup).

People’s closest rival was its Time Inc. sister title, In Style, a monthly that captured its own fashion-category crown with 2,810.83 ad pages, up 4.7 percent.

Total ad revenue for the industry was up 1.1 percent, to $19.7 billion, compared with a year earlier, according to full-year figures released by the Publishers Information Bureau.

It was the first time since the recession that total-year ad revenue finished in positive territory.

The revenue figure is usually considered a less reliable gauge than ad pages, however, since the calculation is based on the published price for a single ad page. Large multipage advertisers never pay full price.

For that reason, the ad-page count has been considered the more reliable barometer of the industry’s health — and by that yardstick the magazine publishing sector posted a 4.1 percent decline, to 145,712.93.

In 2012, the decline was 8 percent.

Said Mary Berner, the CEO of MPA, the Association of Magazine Media, “I think it says print is stabilizing.”

“Women’s fashion continued to be strong,” noted Berner, with Vogue up 3.5 percent, to 22,691.43 pages, Elle up 1.9 percent, to 2,501.3 pages, and Harper’s Bazaar up to 2,073.3.

Berner also noted that the men’s fashion books, thought smaller, also looked fashionable, with Details up 15.1 percent (to 698.21 pages), Esquire up 17.1 percent (1,011.48) and GQ up 10 percent (1,301).

The downers included most weeklies other than People, and business titles, with the on-the-block Forbes posting a 10.4 percent drop in ad pages, to 1,644.24, Fortune dipping 3.8 percent, to 1,408.77, and Bloomberg Business Week posting a 12.4 percent drop, to 1,306.26.

Epicurean titles, paced by Bon Appetit (up 22.3 percent, to 750.75 pages) and Eating Well (up 61.1 percent, to 292.32), looked delicious to ad buyers.

But all of the larger women’s service books posted declines, including Better Homes & Gardens (down 9.7 percent, to 1,233.36), Woman’s Day (down 11.2 percent, to 1,127.58), Good Housekeeping (off 6.9 percent, to 1,120.69), Family Circle (down 8.9 percent, to 1,094.02), Redbook (down 8.2 percent, to 993.76) and Ladies Home Journal (off 16.8 percent, to 616.11).