Teen titles suffer ad-page angst

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, June 15, 1995

The five-title category (including `Teen, Sassy, Seventeen, YM and Boys' Life) was down in pages by nearly 14 percent through April, to 738 from 856 for the same period last year. "marketers still view teens as a secondary piece of their main target, the female market," says Bill McCusker, business manager for Petersen Publishing's Teen (-12 percent) and Sassy.

The latter title dropped 65 percent when it skipped its December and January issues after being acquired by Petersen from Lang Communications. K-III Magazines' Seventeen, coming off its big 50th anniversary push last year, still managed an 8 percent jump thanks to strong retail advertising and exclusive activity from such names as Clinique. The true measure of the category comes in August and September with the back-to-school apparel market. Says McCusker: "Those issues will either make or break us for the entire year."