Wall Street

The Magazine Publishers of America released their Q1 2010 survey of magazine advertising pages last week and guess what? Things aren’t getting worse as quickly as they were last year at this time. Last year Q1 ad pages were down 26 percent industry wide. This year, they’re only down 9.4 percent.

What does this mean to action sports media? Unfortunately, the only action sports titles tracked by the MPA are Bonnier’s Transworld Media titles. And while last year they did better than the industry average, this year they are more than double below (even after shuttering Quad Off-Road Magazine last year).

Here’s how it looks for the Transworld titles:

                              2010      2009     %change
TRANSWORLD SURF             151.26    195.54       -22.6
TRANSWORLD SKATEBOARDING    242.79    304.15       -20.2
TRANSWORLD SNOWBOARDING     290.50    359.48       -19.2
TRANSWORLD MOTOCROSS        203.49    244.17       -16.7
RIDE BMX                     75.41     75.10         0.3

According to the MPA, in the first three months of 2010 Transworld Media print advertising was down a total of 215.3 advertising pages when compared to the same period in 2009. Assuming an average rate per page of $2,500 this represents about $538,250 in revenue for the quarter.

Then again, the Transworld titles look great when compared to many of Bonnier’s magazines. For instance, in the same quarter Wakeboarding was down 49 percent, Skiing Magazine down 41 percent, and Sport Diver was down 36.5 percent vs. 2009. In fact, of all the magazines tracked by the MPA, Bonnier had six of the ten biggest percent Q1 advertising losers in US publishing.

It wasn’t all bad news in print advertising according to a story in The New York Times. Three categories of magazine advertising were actually up:

. . . financial, insurance and real estate (up 11.3 percent from 2009); cosmetics and toiletries (up 7.6 percent) and automotive (up 1.3 percent.)

Guess we’re going to see more double pits to chesty advertising in the near future. . .

[Link: Magazine Publishers of America and New York Times]

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Don’t ever say there’s no going back in the action sports media business. Norb Garrett, the guy who’s most recently been running the San Clemente Times is back at Source Interlink’s Action Sport Group after a six year break. From 2001-2004 Norb was group publisher and editorial director.

“The SIM team and our outstanding brands will no doubt benefit from the caliber of experience Norb brings to the business and his passion for these titles and the verticals they cover,” said Argentieri. “We are very pleased to welcome him aboard and look to amplify the efforts and opportunities to grow this vibrant group of properties.” . . . “I’m thrilled to have an opportunity to lead this terrific portfolio of businesses and help them grow,” said Garrett, who most recently served as CEO/publisher of Picket Fence Media, a community media business and who also served as vice president, group publisher/editorial director of Primedia’s Action Sports Group from 2001-2004. “I have a real affinity for these titles and anticipate better leveraging Source Interlink’s superior distribution network while strengthening and building on our core print, online and event platforms.”

All we can say is Surfer, Surfing, Skateboarder, Snowboarder et. al. will be in good hands while they flounder around for a growing revenue stream now that the magazine era is dead and gone.

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