Tough times for women’s mags

“Lady mags are in trouble…Big surprise. Lady mags are dinosaurs,” writes The Tyee‘s Vanessa Richmond in a recent column.

She wrote:

“Elle‘s ad pages for September are down 21 per cent, Harper’s Bazaar 25 per cent, Vanity Fair 27 per cent, W, 53 per cent, and Vogue, 36 per cent.”

Richmond notes that  “the fall issues’ fat revenues, bursting at the seams, usually carry them through the lean months after Christmas.”

Indeed, September issues are important. Advertising Age recently noted:

“September is a critical month for the titles as well. Vogue booked 673.89 ad pages in last year’s September issue alone, for example, 23% of its haul for the full year, according to Media Industry Newsletter figures. For Elle, September represented 16% of the whole year’s ad pages. If all issues were equal, a magazine publishing 12 times a year would expect each to contribute about 8%.”

Another recent Ad Age article,  “Why Ad Pages Won’t Ever Fully Return to Mags,” begins:

“When fashion magazines revealed how poorly ad pages sold in their important September issues, they called their weakness temporary and incidental. ‘This is not about magazines, this is about the recession,’ one executive said. ‘It’s going to be a while before it all comes back,’ said another.”