NOW we’re in for it.
Condé Nast Publications, which last year managed to soar above the general industry malaise by posting a 5.41 percent jump in ad pages, is slumping in the first half of 2008.
The three big titles – Vogue, Glamour and Vanity Fair – are all flat to down in the first half, according to Media Industry Newsletter, and the outlook is dim for a second half recovery to bail them out.
Only Condé’s smaller magazines, such as Bon Appetit or Architectural Digest, have so far defied the trend. But they are not enough to stem the tide of woe at what had been the most recession-resistant company in the business.
Vogue, the company flagship, is flat with a tiny 0.44 percent increase in ad pages to 1,328 for the first half, according to Media Industry Newsletter. Last year, Vogue Publisher Tom Florio managed to hang onto the title of most profitable magazine in the company with a 5 percent jump in ad pages to 3,222.71.
The company’s second most profitable magazine, Glamour, is down markedly this year after posting a record-setting year in 2007 under Publisher Bill Wackerman.
Last year, Glamour jumped 10 percent and clobbered archrival Cosmopolitan at Hearst in the ad-page race by more than 200 pages. However, in the first half of this year, Glamour’s ad pages slumped 8.36 percent to 858.86.
Cosmopolitan, meanwhile, tumbled 15 percent in ad pages.
“We’re not immune to what is going on in the economy,” said Wackerman. “Although we’re losing pages, our market share is up. Market share is the new up.”
Vanity Fair Publisher Edward Menicheschi powered that title to a 16.7 percent increase in ad pages last year to 2,262 – the biggest increase of any of the established magazines at Condé Nast.
This year, ad pages slumped 8.74 percent to 839.4 in the first half of the year.
There is considerable tension as the magazines begin to close their big September issues.
Traditionally, retailers do most of their advertising in the final quarter. But this year, insiders at Condé Nast, and indeed across the industry, are worried that marketers’ budgets are going to stay tight and that their wallets won’t be opened up very much by yearend.
The Condé Nast shortfall seems to have been most severe in the second quarter.
In the first quarter, armed with ad spending plans that were largely conceived at the end of last year, the glitzy publisher looked like it might defy the industry trend of flat to down numbers.
But the spigot appears to have been turned off in the second quarter as consumer confidence plunged and the economy wobbled.
“Right now, we’re closing September and it’s off,” conceded Glamour’s Wackerman, who added he’s not looking for a big surge in ad spending at year end.
“It may lag into the second half of 2009,” he conceded. “I don’t think we’re at the end of it, I think we’re in the middle of it.”
Condé Nast doesn’t go into budget planning phase until late summer and early fall. Traditionally, the company does not have downsizings on the scale of, say, Time Inc. But the company has pruned more frequently in the past few years with the shutdown of unprofitable titles.
While the money-bleeding Portfolio is viewed as a serious long-term project, some observers think that spin-off titles such as Men’s Vogue and Vogue Living could be imperiled if the downturn continues much longer.
A company spokeswoman said there are no plans for downsizing at the moment.
“It is definitely a challenging year, but we continue to move forward,” she said.
Cover story
People magazine put Tim Russert on its cover the week that the “Meet the Press” anchor died of a heart attack, and some industry observers noticed that the cover price was hiked from the usual $3.99 to $4.49.
However, the higher price wasn’t to capitalize on Russert’s death. Instead, it was related to the annual Hot Bachelor issue of the magazine, a People spokesman said.
Hot Bachelor issue is a double issue, and even though Russert’s face bumped the hot bachelor out of prominent cover display, the issue still sold at the higher price. One source said the Russert cover sold above average for the Time Inc. owned titles hitting close to 1.7 million newsstand sales.