So far so good this year, especially for niche market magazines, according to new ad spend figures compiled by Kantar Media.
“The first quarter of 2014 saw good gains in overall ad spending, according to a just released report from Kantar Media. The report shows that advertising expenditures increased 5.7 percent in the quarter $34.9 billion,” writes D. B. Hebbard in Talking New Media.
The figures include ad spend across several channels: TV, magazines, Internet display ads, newspapers, radio, outdoors and free standing inserts (FSI). And while some of the growth can be attributed to the increased ad spend during the Winter Olympics, it’s good news even without that amount included.
“The Winter Olympics delivered its expected windfall in the first quarter, adding about $600 million of incremental ad spending to the marketplace. But the nature of the event is that this money is narrowly distributed and doesn’t benefit all sectors of the market,” notes Jon Swallen of Kantar in an interview with Hebbard.
“Subtracting the Olympics’ contribution, the growth rate for remaining expenditures was just under four percent,” Swallen continues.
In the magazine category, consumer title ad spend did fall (down 2%), while business-oriented publications fared better.
“Kantar reported that B2B [magazine advertising] actually grew in the quarter, up 1.2 percent, which would be very good news for publishers hoping to see an end to the sliding,” reports Hebbard.
Local and regional magazines had a strong showing too, up 4.4%. with an almost identical decline (4.7%) in local radio adverts. And Spanish language magazines showed a robust 15.6% growth.
Niche and special interest publishers can take heart that niche magazine market remains popular with readers. And this makes the attraction to print advertisers consistently high.