Conde Nast's No Good, Very Bad Quarter
Consumer magazines as a whole lost nearly 26% of their ad pages in the first quarter. We broke out the numbers for Conde Nast, and they're just as bad. The biggest loser: Wired.
It was clear at the end of last year that ad numbers were tanking across the board. Now, they're getting worse; the losses have nearly doubled, in some cases. These are only rate base figures that may not exactly reflect specific sales figures, but they give a clear enough picture of the direction these magazines' finances are going. The company lost $200 million in Q1, compared to last year.
Notable: The weak performance of Portfolio; the fact that Bon Appetit is doing better than Gourmet, (very) relatively speaking; the continued alarming decline of the New Yorker; and the even more alarming decline of Wired, which you voted to save at all costs. The full list is below. [Title/ '09/ '08/ % Change]