After a free fall during the dark days of 2020, advertising bounced back last year, but not for magazines.
In a new report, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers found that while the majority of media has seen positive advertising revenue growth in 2021 compared to the previous year, print magazines were the only exception, recording an annual drop of 5.4 percent.
The category was already struggling before the pandemic, but took a real hit during 2020, leading to some publishers pulling print altogether, while others have trimmed frequency as advertisers increasingly pursued digital opportunities.
Most recently, Dotdash Meredith, revealed that six of the magazines it acquired — InStyle, Entertainment Weekly, EatingWell, Health, Parents and People en Español — would become digital-only publications, resulting in about 200 job losses. Up until that point, InStyle was the last women’s fashion magazine in the U.S. still publishing 12 issues a year.
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Elsewhere, Vogue, Elle, WSJ., Cosmopolitan, O, The Oprah Magazine, W, Allure, Elle Decor, Esquire, GQ, Good Housekeeping, Vanity Fair and Marie Claire have all reduced frequency.
Out of all media sectors highlighted in the IAB report, digital advertising continued to be the dominant presence in terms of overall revenue, increasing 35.4 percent year-over-year to $189 billion — the highest growth since 2006.
“We fully expected 2021 to be an exceptional year for digital ad growth, but even we were surprised at the degree of acceleration. Not only was every single digital channel up, but some were up more than 50 percent year-on-year,” said Libby Morgan, chief strategy officer at IAB. “This year’s increase is three-times what it was last year.”
Other sectors such as cinema, business-to-business and music also enjoyed strong revenue growth since last year of 61.8 percent, 46.3 percent and 32.4 percent, respectively.
And even newspapers, which are usually clubbed together with magazines as struggling legacy publishers, recorded annual growth of 3.6 percent.
There may be some light at the end of the tunnel for magazines, though, as the impressive total digital advertising number included consumer magazine and trade magazine digital advertising, although it did not break out numbers by sector.
Looking ahead to the remainder of 2022, IAB and PwC forecast continued digital ad growth, driven by significant innovation in retail media, gaming and digital audio. “The continued rise of AR/VR, the metaverse and Web3 technologies is expected to spark innovation — and continue to drive ad revenue in the years ahead,” it said.
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