Declines in B2B-Mag Ad Pages Mirror Consumer Mags’ Woes

Folio Magazine reports that, according to a study by American Business Media, trade magazines lost 28.6% of their ad pages from 2008 to 2009, and ad revenue fell 24% in the same period.

That’s slightly worse than the results the Publishers Information Bureau compiled for consumer magazines in January. According to that study, consumer mags dropped 25.6% of their ad pages and their ad revenues declined 18.1%.

Yesterday, the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism published its own numbers, based on estimates by ZenithOptimedia. According to them, magazine ad pages sold industrywide declined 26% in 2009.

What’s more, said Pew, circulation among consumer magazines was also on the decline in 2009:

Of the 472 consumer magazines for which comparable data were available from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, circulation fell 2.23% for the last six months of 2009 compared with the same period a year earlier. But the type of circulation that cannot be controlled through promotional discounts — single-copy, or newsstand, sales — fell 9%, on top of 11% a year earlier. Six news magazines tracked here, excluding U.S. News & World Report after its conversion to monthly, fell 8.2%.

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