1990 editorial salary survey: bonuses are going to more editorial employees, and despite budget concerns in the industry, most editorial employees are faring well

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, June, 1990 by Robert M. Steed

Bonuses arc going to more editorial employees, and and despite budget concerns in the industry, most editorial employees are faring well

That old bugaboo, the budget, was most frequently cited as their biggest editorial challenge by the 589 editorial professionals who responded to this survey. That should come as no surprise, given the uncertain economic climate facing the magazine industry, heightened competition, and strong pressures to do more with less.

On the other hand, despite budget concerns, the salaries and bonuses paid to these respondents do not appear to have fared badly. Senior/associate editors report average increases between 1989 and 1990 of 9.8 percent, while all other job categories show increases over 7 percent. Those are solid salary gains, clearly outpacing the inflation rate of under 5 percent. Furthermore, since 1985 (when FOLIO: began these annual surveys), the average salary of all categories except managing editor has increased between 28 and 31 percent. (The increase for managing editors was 15 percent and may reflect a statistical anomaly.)

For journalists, as for other professionals and executives in magazine publishing, individual talent is an important determinant of pay-one that won't show up in any survey. Other, more measurable, factors do. Following is a summary of the factors that seem to have a strong effect on pay across all or most of the five job categories surveyed.

Experience: Number of years in editorial work bears the clearest, most direct correlation to salary, across all categories.

* Magazine type: Business magazines pay more, sometimes substantially more, than consumer magazines in every category except art director.

* Magazine size: The size measure that correlates most directly to pay is number of editorial pages; however, there is not a dramatic difference in pay between the smallest and largest magazines. Other size measures (e.g., circulation) do not appear to have as direct an impact.

Frequency: Salaries of editorial employees on weeklies and biweeklies are consistently higher than salaries of comparable employees on magazines with other frequencies. Total compensation is often substantially higher, suggesting that bonuses for employees of weeklies and biweeklies are bigger than those paid by other magazines.

Region: The Northeast is almost always the leader in pay; the South Atlantic is almost always last or next-to-last.

Sex: Men consistently earn more than women. But the gradual catch-up of women's salaries appears to be continuing, according to this year's data-with much progress still to be made. As noted in the box, "Using the numbers," year-to-year comparisons of the data should be made with caution.)

Differences in average pay levels among the job categories surveyed are not as large as might be seen in other publishing jobs. Editorial managers earn 33 percent more than editors, in salary and total compensation; editors make 15.6 percent more in salary and 26 percent more in total compensation than managing editors; and managing editors average 12 percent more than senior/associate editors. These somewhat narrow differentials probably reflect the traditional impact that talent and craftsmanship have on editorial compensation. Editorial management

Editorial managers average about $59,900 in salary; those who receive a bonus average almost $69,000 in total compensation. Managers on business magazines earn a whopping $11,000 (20 percent) more in salary than their consumer counterparts. This result appears to be caused by the consumer sample's disproportionate number of women and people with less experience working in small departments. But, since the survey methodology examines only one variable at a time (see "Using the numbers"), that assumption cannot be verified.

Unlike every other category, the West leads in the compensation race among editorial managers-by $5,000 over the usual leaders in the Northeast and $17,000 over the lowest paying region, the South Atlantic.

One-third of editorial managers in this survey are female, and their salaries average 80.5 percent of men's. However, a larger percentage of women than men are eligible for a bonus, and their total compensation moves up to 83 percent of men's.

Size of the magazine, no matter how it is measured, bears a direct relationship to pay-at least when one examines the extremes of the very smallest and very largest. However, between the top and bottom, the correlation is often not so smooth. For example, while salary rises from $52,000 for managers on magazines with circulations up to 20,000, to $94,000 for those on magazines with over 500,000 in circulation, average salary actually declines slightly as circulation rises for some of the interim circulation groupings.

Experience has a strong impact on pay, with salary more than doubling for those with more than 20 years' experience compared to those with less than four years' experience. The size of the manager's department is also a key determinant, with salary of those with a staff of over 10 being 2.3 times as high as those who supervise no one. Editor