Faster Than You Can Say ElleGirl, Cargo, or Celebrity Living, Magazines Are Killed; Quicker Than You Can Say Time Inc. and Staff Are Fired And Now The Final Indignity – Internet Advertising Will Surpass Magazine Advertising This Year.

Other publishers have also put in the knife when least expected. Conde Nast sinks Cargo after its May issue. Cargo, a shopping guide for men launched two years ago with great fanfare, failed to surpass the 400,000 paid circulation barrier. Conde Nast is now said to be working on a web-only publication aimed at teens.

American Media is killing off three magazines including, surprisingly, Celebrity Living -- a surprise because celebrity-type magazines are considered to be the leading sector, but it is also one of the most competitive.

And if magazines aren’t being closed then staffs are being cut. Time Inc. has fired some 455 people (nearly 4% of its workforce) in four months, and most recently it closed Time’s Canadian news bureau. Time continues with a Canadian edition, albeit with less Canadian news.

And in some cases magazines are going back to their native roots. The National Enquirer that had been published in Florida moved a couple of years ago to New York. The editor who engineered that move has now been fired and the magazine is moving back to Florida.

What’s behind all of this? Magazine publishers have become increasingly convinced their future is the Internet, not glossy paper. So whereas in the past magazines may have been given some five years to make the grade, today time is the one commodity not in great supply. Marginal titles, even if they show good growth patterns, are judged by comparison to centering activities on the web, and more often than not the web wins.

It is not only publishers that are thinking that way. So are the advertisers. According to a Merrill Lynch report, 2006 is the year where Internet ad dollars will surpass magazine ad dollars. Publishers are basically being pragmatic and saying if that is the case then let some of those advertising dollars flow to Internet-based magazines and since they are far less expensive to produce, then why mess around with paper?

All is not bleak for print magazines, according to the Publishers Information Bureau (PIB). Ad pages in consumer magazines grew in the 1st quarter by 0.4% over the 1st quarter of 2005, and more importantly the revenue from those pages was up by 4.2% to $4.9 billion for the quarter.

For the news weeklies, Newsweek saw a 17.7% increase in quarterly revenues, US News and World Report gained 13% but Time was down 2.2%, the latter still hit the hardest by a continuing softness in auto advertising that saw a 25% drop in 2005. The growth was almost entirely due to resurgence in pharmaceutical advertising that had dropped off sharply last year.

But those magazines that rely the most on food and food product advertising are being hit hard and the signs are it is not going to get any better. Surely it is no coincidence that food spending was down 7.6% and the number of pages dropped 10.9% while at the same time major food producers Kraft Foods and General Mills announced major online spending plans for this year.

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With Major US Magazine Publishers Time Inc. and McGraw-Hill Making Savage Job Cuts The Signals Are Clear – The Difficulties Magazines Faced in 2005 Are Just a Taste of What to Expect in 2006
So much attention has been focused on newspaper circulation and advertisement woes that magazines seemed to have slipped under the radar, but with advertisers forecasting they will cut back on magazine advertising more than newspapers, and circulation at a basic standstill for most subject matter, the largest US magazine publishers have started to cutback.

Which Magazine Would You Buy If the Cover Showed: (a) British Chic Personality Liz Hurley, 40, Shown Full Length Modeling A Bikini, or (b) Facial Shot of American Actress, Jane Fonda, 67, Wrinkles and All?
The headline to this story is not meant to be sexist. It’s a real choice. See the cover pictures below. And that type of question is increasingly being asked at many big name magazines. Do you need sex to sell, or can the face of a 67-year-old star on the cover of a magazine read mostly by females over 30 do the job?

Does it Cross the Editorial Line in the Sand If an Automobile Manufacturer Pays for Its Car to be in a News Photo, Or a Brand Named Ketchup Pays To Be Mentioned in a Cooking Recipe?
Product placement is worth in the billions of dollars to movies and television but what may not be so well known is that it is worth in the hundreds of millions to newspapers and magazines. And some advertisers want to see that grow, even crossing that boundary that has traditionally separated advertising from editorial.

Gruner + Jahr May be Europe’s Largest and Most Successful Magazine Publisher, But Its US Operation Was An Absolute Disaster That Severely Tarnished the Brand. Its Solution -- Hold A Fire Sale and Then Get the Hell Out of Dodge City
In announcing its sale of Family Circle, Parents, Fitness, and Child to Meredith Corporation for $350 million – about half of what they should have gotten if the magazines had been well looked after -- Gruner +Jarhr has finally given up the ghost of its US magazine operation. If it can’t sell its two remaining properties, Inc. and Fast Company, by June 30 then Meredith will take them on and sell them probably in an auction.

With Record Internet Advertising in 2004 on Both Sides of the Atlantic Is It Any Wonder Traditional Media Invests Big-Time Buying Online Sites?
US Internet advertising grew 17% in the 2004 fourth quarter to achieve a record $9.6 billion for the year – that’s 32% more than 2003 and 19% more than in 2000 when the dot com boom was at its highest. Some European countries are reporting even higher percentage gains....

Kraft says it will double the number of online campaigns and increase by 50% the number of brands it advertises on the Internet. General Mills says it will double its online spend, and while television in particular has been hit the hardest by such spend shifts there can be no doubt that magazines are being hurt, too.

Time Inc is going through a major editorial reorganization and there is no doubt that web activities now are the priority. The PIB reported that Time Magazine’s advertising pages in 2005 were down 12%. Other company titles also suffered including Fortune, 10%; and Sports Illustrated 17%. This year its most profitable magazine, People, is down 21%. No wonder for the cull throughout the magazine division, and for the emphasis on web activities.

Magazines seem to have caught on faster than newspapers on the need for convergence between print and web ads. At Newsweek, for instance, about 30% of ads are cross-platform.

Perhaps the brightest story in American magazines to show there is still life left in paper is Martha Stewart Living. During Martha Stewart’s legal problems the magazine barely survived with many advertisers bolting, but once the lady was out of jail it seemed American women had either forgotten or forgave. Within a year the magazine has increased revenues by 100% and increased the pages sold by 81%. The PIB reports 1st quarter advertising equaled $31.9 million compared to $15.9 million the year before.

Phillips Extends “Simplicity” To Time Magazine’s Table of Contents - April 24, 2006

When magazine revenue is down, publishers may well be willing to look at advertising opportunities that in better days they would have passed on. Such is the case with Time Inc. that has agreed a commercial deal with Phillips, the Dutch electronics giant, to sponsor for $5 million that the table of content pages in four magazines - Time, Fortune, People, and Business 2.0 -- be placed on page one of each magazine.

Finding the table of contents in many magazines these days is no easy task. It’s supposed to be near the beginning of the magazine and so each page is turned until it’s found. That’s why the pages before the table of contents are considered prime advertising territory, and when advertising sales go well the table of contents can get pushed back past page 20 or so. Good for publishers, a pain to the reader wanting to know what’s in the magazine.

So Phillips, in what is truly a novel approach as it further promotes its “simplicity” advertising theme, now will sponsor having the table of contents right up on page one and there will be a cover flap telling readers they can thank Phillips for making the contents so easily available. Simple.

The flap on today’s issue of Time Magazine reads, “Simplicity means not letting complexity stand in your way. It starts with the Table of Contents on the first page. And it continues with the last page where you’ll see innovative products that will change the way you live.”

As part of the campaign Phillips is buying more than seven pages of ads in each of the magazines.