It was an ugly 2008 for the entire magazine industry, and the major fashion and luxury titles couldn't escape the blows of the broader economic decline. By the end of the third quarter, magazine ad pages had declined 10 percent across the industry, reported Publishers Information Bureau in October, as major ad categories like pharmaceutical, automotive, technology and beauty reduced spending significantly compared to 2007. The declines continued as Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns collapsed, Washington Mutual was swallowed whole, and the federal government granted a $700 billion bailout to help rescue the U.S. financial system. With an economy in disarray and consumer confidence on the wane, advertisers reined in ad budgets across all media, with print hit especially hard.
According to publishers' estimates to be filed to PIB, fashion magazines on the whole reported double-digit drops through 2008. For most, the declines represented cyclical changes in the economy. Others had more specific challenges -- for example, Condé Nast's fashion magazines carried fewer pages in December because of the company's decision to forego the marketing program Movies Rocks. Vanity Fair lost 84 pages as a result of the cancellation of the supplement. The magazine for the entire year had 1,917 ad pages, or 15.3 percent fewer than in 2007, suffering also from the writers' strike earlier this year, which reduced the amount of promotional spending around new movies and television shows. Other Condé Nast titles hit by double-digit declines included Glamour (down 12.4 percent); W (12.7 percent), Lucky (11.3), Teen Vogue (10.2) and GQ (11.5). Vogue's pages declined nearly 10 percent, coming off of a record-breaking year in 2007 in ad pages and revenue under publisher Tom Florio.