Magazine Advertisement

I am amazed at the huge number of magazines I see at the Library or in Boarders Book
Store. I have researched this, and find that there are 7,383 magazines claimed to be published in
North America alone. New magazines appear every year. Fifty-four magazines folded in 2009.
Advertizing accounts for a large amount of their income. Apparently, this is considered a
primary reason a magazine stays in business. It is generally believed that a magazine will close
down if advertising income drops however not if its circulation drops! This is unfortunate since I
abhor advertising and just skip past it myself.
The magazine industry however emphasizes that surveys indicate that magazine
advertising is preferred over other media forms. A magazine industry self-fulfilling prophecy,
perhaps? This in itself only increases the probability of more magazine advertising. That may
be good for the magazine but not for the consumer.
Below I have inserted a little table showing how much you pay for page of information in a
magazine.
Full
Magazine Date Total Cost Page Cost/ Percent Cost/
Pages Info
* Ads** Page Ads Pages

$ $
1 US News 12/1/2009 100 $4.99 45 0.05 45.0% 0.09
11/30/200 $ $
2 Newsweek 9 64 $5.95 23 0.09 35.9% 0.15
$ $
3 Time 12/7/2009 116 $5.95 57 0.05 49.1% 0.10
$ $
4 Wired 12/1/2009 207 $4.95 99 0.02 47.8% 0.05
$ $
5 Fortune 12/7/2009 120 $4.99 59 0.04 49.2% 0.08
Popular $ $
6 Science 1/1/2010 96 $4.99 32 0.05 33.3% 0.08
Atlantic Jan/Feb/2 $ $
7 Monthly 010 124 $6.99 33 0.06 26.6% 0.08
National $ $
8 Geographic 1/10/10 158 $ 6.99 19 0.04 12.0% 0.05
$ $
9 Sunset 11/1/09 128 $4.99 55 0.04 43.0% 0.07
1 $ $
0 People 1/25/10 138 $3.99 65 0.03 47.1% 0.05

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 $54.7 $
Total 1251 8 487 $0.04 38.9% 0.07
$ $
Average 125.1 $5.48 48.7 0.05 38.9% 0.08

* Includes front and back

cover = 4
** Does not include smaller ads on
info pages.

As shown for the ten magazines reviewed an average of 38.9% of the pages are
advertisement. National Geographic has the least at 12.0% and Fortune the most at 49.2%. You
are paying an average of seven cents per page of information; with Newsweek costing the most
at 15 cents per page and with Wired, National Geographic and People costing the least at 5 cents
per page. Note that the prices for magazines may be low in several cases since newsstand
editions were not found.
In comparison for a book of 325 pages, costing $24.95 you would be paying 8 cents per
information page. Incidentally, no advertisement comes with books except for the dust jacket
pitches for the book.
The first magazine printed in London in 1731 was The Gentleman’s Magazine. I would
assume it had no advertisements but I am not certain, in any event, since its inception the
magazine industry has evolved to the point that it aggressively seeks out advertising revenue to
maintain its operations.
Magazine advertisement, which was down for first half of 2009 still accounted for a
whopping 9.1 billion dollars! (as reported in FishbowlNY article by Amanda Ernst, July 10,
2009). That means roughly 18 billion dollars a year is spent on magazine advertisements! If all
that was spent on the 7,383 magazines mentioned they would be getting an average of over 2.4
million in advertisement revenue a year! That is certainly not chump change.
I enjoy magazines reading six or so a month. However, I am appalled at the amount of
unwanted advertising that I encounter in each one. The data provided is based on my quick
assessment but I would invite you to do your own on your favorite magazine. As you can see, I
suspect you purchase it for the information it provides not the advertisements and depending on
your inclination you read, skim, or avoid the ads. One redeeming feature with magazine

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advertisements is that you do not have to wait for it to finish, as you do with radio and TV ads
but just turn the page.
Unfortunately, magazine advertisement is big business and is here to stay I am afraid. I
see all advertisements as an invasion of my privacy, and would prefer they were eliminated.
Bottom line I guess, is would we be willing to buy magazines that had no advertising and double
or triple the cover price? The next time you are reading an interesting article in your favorite
magazine and have to leap over three pages of ads for some critical medication to continue, you
will have to decide for yourself.

Social Comment

By an outspoken member of the silent generation.

January 30, 2010