Catalog and Publication Outlook -- Proceed with Caution

“For both consumer and business titles, magazine ad pages and ad revenues have been down year-to-date, in part, due to the health of many advertiser categories,” Marcoux says, noting, however, that new title launches still remain strong.

“At the same time, we have seen publishers discontinuing non-performing titles completely, reducing frequency, reducing run counts or making them Web-based only, and doing so in much shorter windows than in the past,” he explains. “Also, there continues to be downward subscription pressures on weeklies, especially the business weeklies, resulting in publishers reducing circulation and frequency, in addition to organizational restructuring and reductions in work force.”