Magazine Ad Revenues Plunge; Google Collects Half of Mobile Internet Ads; Cannibalization of Ad Market

Is the advertising pie growing, shrinking, or simply being redistributed? Let's start with a look at PEW Center research that shows News magazines hit by big drop in ad pages.

In a difficult advertising environment for the magazine industry overall, newly-released numbers from the Association of Magazine Media (MPA) show the nation’s news magazines being hit particularly hard.



Total consumer magazine ad pages dropped 4.9% compared with the first half of 2012, according to MPA data for the first six months of 2013, released July 9. But the drop in ad pages for five major news magazines—Time, The Economist, The Atlantic, The Week and The New Yorker—was far steeper, a combined 18% in the first half of 2013 compared with the same period a year earlier. In one indicator of the difficulties facing news magazines, Newsweek—which saw ad pages decline by 60% from 2002 to 2012—discontinued its print edition at the end of 2012.

While these numbers highlight a difficult print advertising climate, they don’t tell the whole story. MPA President Mary Berner says magazines are increasingly generating digital revenue. Initial industry monitoring of digital advertising revenue for some magazine iPad versions found that sales increased about 25% in the first half of 2013. Berner called those gains “encouraging” and added that later this year, about 100 magazines will begin reporting some digital revenue results. In addition, some news magazines, most notably The Economist and The Atlantic, have begun diversifying revenue streams with such initiatives as events, conferences and creation of niche content.

Looking over the past decade, from 2003 through 2012, the overall ad pages for news magazines (excluding Newsweek) dropped by 36%, from 7,848 to 5,008. But within that time frame were several shifts in trajectory. A major drop-off in ad pages occurred from 2008 to 2009 (17%.) Ad pages stabilized from 2009 to 2011, growing at a modest 1%. But then another downturn occurred as ad pages in 2012 dropped 13% from the previous year, followed by the 18% decline in the first half of 2013.

Google Takes Home Half of Mobile Internet Ads

eMarketer reports Google Takes Home Half of Worldwide Mobile Internet Ad Revenues.

Google earned more than half of the $8.8 billion advertisers worldwide spent on mobile internet ads last year, helping propel the company to take in nearly one-third of all digital ad dollars spent globally, according to eMarketer’s first-ever figures on worldwide digital and mobile advertising revenues at major internet companies.

Ad Revenues in Dollars and Percent of Market



After making nearly half a billion dollars worldwide on mobile ads last year, Facebook—which had no mobile revenue in 2011—is expected to increase mobile revenues by more than 333% to just over $2 billion in 2013, and account for a 12.9% share of the global net mobile advertising market.

eMarketer estimates that Google made $4.61 billion in mobile internet ad revenues last year, more than triple its earnings in 2011. This year’s mobile revenues will be up a further 92.1% to $8.85 billion.

Combined, three companies—Google, Facebook and Twitter—account for a consolidating share of mobile advertising revenues worldwide, as other players, such as YP, Pandora, Apple and Millennial Media, see their shares decrease, despite maintaining relatively strong businesses growing at rapid rates.

Cannibalization of Ad Market

My friend "BC" who sent the links surmises ....

"The decline in magazine ad revenues is approximately the same as the increase in Internet and  mobile/social media ads; therefore, the net increase in ads is a wash, i.e., cannibalization of the advertising market. Companies earning their revenues from ads will now be in a zero-sum competition for no growth of, and later a falling number of, ad dollars hereafter."

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com