Top 300 Magazines in the U.S. Rose 5.2% in Revenue to $36.64 billion in 2005
The top 300 magazines in the U.S. advanced 5.2% in gross revenue from advertising and circulation to $36.64 billion in 2005, according to the 17th annual Advertising Age Magazine 300 report. By comparison, gross revenue at the top 300 magazines increased 8% in 2004 from the year earlier.- People: $1.37 billion, up 8.1%
- Better Homes & Gardens:$971.5M, up 9.4%
- Time: $944.6 million, down 6%
- Sports Illustrated: $925.7 million, down 9.8%.
- TV Guide: $726.1 million, down 20.9%
Consumer magazines (which accounted for 92.2% of Top 300 total revenue), grew by 5.7% over 2004, and Monthlies (which accounted for more than half the Magazine 300's gross revenue) gained 7.7% in gross revenue.
Components of gross revenue included advertising at $27.18 billion, up 7.5%, or nearly three-quarters of the total, and stagnant circulation at $9.46 billion, down 0.8%. For the ad component, an average page-rate growth of 6.6% generated the increase, considering ad pages were down 0.7% overall.
Components of circulation revenue included subscriptions, at $6.78 billion, down 0.7%, and newsstand sales at $2.68 billion, down 1.1%. Overall, paid circulation among the 300 dropped 0.3% in 2005 to 359.86 million subs and newsstand sales.
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TOP CONSUMER TITLES |
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| BY AD REVENUE | |||
| RANK | MAGAZINE | AD REVENUE 2005 | % CHG |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | People | $850,408 | 10.6 |
| 2 | Better Homes & Gardens | 800,007 | 11.8 |
| 3 | Time | 631,756 | -8.1 |
| 4 | Parade | 626,020 | 1.6 |
| 5 | Sports Illustrated | 623,539 | -13.5 |
| 6 | Good Housekeeping | 477,701 | 9.8 |
| 7 | Newsweek | 472,145 | -6.0 |
| 8 | USA Weekend | 431,439 | 3.6 |
| 9 | Woman's Day | 408,380 | 15.8 |
| 10 | InStyle | 391,093 | 9.8 |
| BY AD REVENUE GROWTH | |||
| RANK | MAGAZINE | AD REVENUE 2005 | % CHG |
| 1 | In Touch Weekly | $60,380 | 197.8 |
| 2 | Dwell | 23,782 | 125.8 |
| 3 | Teen Vogue | 77,670 | 118.2 |
| 4 | Game Informer | 58,159 | 103.1 |
| 5 | Star Magazine | 127,601 | 84.3 |
| 6 | Everyday Food | 18,322 | 79.1 |
| 7 | The Week | 17,785 | 62.5 |
| 8 | Motorcylist | 25,604 | 51.1 |
| 9 | Petersen's 4Wheel & Off-Road | 29,827 | 48.4 |
| 10 | Martha Stewart Living | 104,623 | 45.9 |
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TOP TECH TITLES |
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| BY AD REVENUE | |||
| RANK | MAGAZINE | AD REVENUE 2005 | % CHG |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | PC Magazine | $129,885 | -25.0 |
| 2 | InformationWeek | 116,298 | -8.3 |
| 3 | eWeek | 106,962 | 5.5 |
| 4 | NetworkWorld | 92,901 | -0.8 |
| 5 | PC World | 92,666 | 0.1 |
| 6 | InfoWorld | 65,134 | 0.7 |
| 7 | Wired | 64,511 | 6.9 |
| 8 | CRN | 60,722 | -4.7 |
| 9 | Network Computing | 53,150 | 3.9 |
| 10 | Computerworld | 52,226 | 4.2 |
Notes: Dollars are in thousands. Pages are actual. Methodology: The Top 300 are ranked by gross revenue, the sum of gross advertising and gross circulation dollars. Ad Age prepared a worksheet on each magazine that included circulation data from Audit Bureau of Circulations, BPA Worldwide and SRDS and advertising data from Publishers Information Bureau via TNS Media Intelligence, Perq/HCI and MIN. On the ad side, if a magazine was monitored, the page count and revenue were used. For non-monitored magazines, gross ad revenue represented ad pages x the one-time black and white rate. On the subscriber side, the gross represented total paid subs x the sub price, and on the newsstand side, the single-copy circulation x the newsstand price x the magazine frequency. Publishers reviewed the worksheets and were allowed to make changes. For a magazine to make the Top 10 charts by "growth" (ad pages, ad revenue), frequencies for the two years had to be comparable. Consumer magazines excluded from the growth rankings were the weekly Life, launched in October 2004, and All You and Cottage Living, both introduced in September 2004.
