Magazine trends - consumer magazine business trends

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Annual, 1994 by James B. Kobak

Recession -- what recession?

As far as the consumer magazine business is concerned -- at least from the readership, if not the advertising standpoint, there was just a little blip during the last five years -- only a minor decline in the growth pattern which the industry has been following for some thirty years.

The same old truth seems self evident. Magazines exist because people have a desire to read them. People's interests seem to be constantly expanding and so do the number of magazines to serve those interests.

Gary Hoenig, the former editorial director of Magazine Week recently wrote, "We are suffering from an overabundancy of titles, and non-performers should be weeded out." In my mind this indicates a lack of understanding of what goes on in the business. As you read further you will see that there is a constant weeding out and starting of new titles.

Consider these facts. As the charts at the right show, the average annual increase of number of magazines published has remained relatively unchanged-33-in the periods from 1963 to 1988, and from 1988 to 1993.

The increases in 1988 would have been larger had the computer field not declined by some 30 titles. This was caused by the drop-out of many titles plus the listing of many others in the business magazine volume of Standard Rate & Data rather than the consumer volume.

The change in the number of titles took place in all sizes of magazines.

Only in the total number of copies has the growth seemed to slow down. This is a function of two things:

1. Faster growth in the number of smaller compared to larger circulation magazines.

2. A decline in the number of TABULAR DATA OMITTED issues of the average magazine as publishers realize that greater frequency does not necessarily lead to greater readership, as well as reductions to effect cost savings. The average magazine had 12.2 issues in 1988 but only 11.8 in 1993.

The blip caused by the recession resulted in most of the growth taking place in the period 1988 through 1991 with the various factors remaining relatively constant during approximately the last two years.

The conclusions in this article are the result of periodic studies I have made using the data in the consumer volumes of Standard Rate & Data. These figures are by no means complete for the entire industry, but cover the major magazines. They indicate the overall trends.

The major trends for consumer magazines have not changed during the past few years:

A Solid Base of Strong Magazines Started Years Ago

Half the magazines listed were started before 1980.

The total for these same periods in 1988 was just a little higher, at 768. Included are most of the standbys which we have known for so many years such as the Saturday Evening Post, McCall's, Time, Readers' Digest, Popular Mechanics, and Better Homes, as well as many smaller ones such as Artnews, Yachting, Model Airplane News and The Nation.

An Enormous Churn in the Titles Published

Some 700 magazines are listed in 1993 which were not included in 1988. And 200 other magazines were started and disappeared during the five year period. This means that some 900 magazines were started and another 760 were killed during that short time span.

I suppose you could say that this is a tribute to publishers' willingness to realize that fields -- and people's interests -- change as time goes on.

But it also indicates that it is just too easy to get into the magazine business. All you need is a little money and a willing printer. There is an enormous lack of appreciation of the need to carefully plan, test and adequately finance startups. No wonder the financial community considers magazine publishing to be very risky business.

Consider the wild scene in two fields--Metropolitan/Regional/State and Sports. Of the total magazines started in Metropolitan, 107, 93 were killed; in Sports, of 112 started, 69 were killed.

The same has taken place in a number of other fields, although without the huge numbers of titles involved.

General Interest vs. Special Interest

While conventional wisdom tells us that special interest magazines are the wave of the day, in the number of TABULAR DATA OMITTED titles and every other phase, the fact is that the general interest magazines are holding their own.

Men vs. Women

Other conventional wisdom has it that women are much heavier magazine readers than men. During the five year period the number of magazines for both men and women increased, but there is not the big disparity in readership which is generally attributed to women's magazines. There are fewer, but larger titles for women, although this is gradually changing as women's interest are changing.

Regional

There was a large increase in the number of regional magazines, although this happened primarily through 1991 with a decline occurring after that.

1988      1993        % Change

238        329          38.2%

Not-for-Profit

There was also a continued increase in magazines published by not-for-profit organizations:

1988      1993         % Change

148        180           21.6%