Kitchens and baths spring ad-page leak - advertising for kitchen and bath fixtures - Brief Article - Illustration

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Sept 1, 1994

New-home construction is bouncing back, but the results have yet to show up in the kitchens-and-baths category. Through May, the two titles tracked - PTN Publishing's Kitchen & Bath Design News and Miller Freeman's Kitchen & Bath Business - were down a combined 5 percent in pages, to 490 from 514 last year.

Allan Brown, national sales director for KBB, notes that the hard-hit custom cabinet manufacturing segment has forced line cutbacks and closings by stock cabinetmakers: "Merillat has stopped promoting its Amera custom cabinet division separately, while Aristokraft has altogether discontinued its Actua line." Others are advertising in consumer rather than trade titles - a trend KBB has adapted to by teaming with Gruner Jahr's American Homestyle and running joint ads.