Magazines take a big hit

I sometimes am criticized for writing too much about the decline of the newspaper industry. It is perhaps a fair criticism, though I do so because newspapers are, outside the store, the largest medium for trade promotion spending. Newspapers are not alone, however -- all the media (again, excepting the store) are hurting.

According to the Magazine Publshers of America, advertising revenue in their medium was down 7.8% last year, with the fourth quarter down a mind-boggling 13.8%. These numbers are worse than most of those I've seen for newspapers. Some of the major magazines have even worse numbers: Time was down 14.1% for the year, Newsweek -27.1%, the New York -20.7%. Those are some scary numbers.