NY Times Reports on "Mostly Gloom for Glossies"

According to the New York Times: "Another day, another closure. Magazines are becoming thinner as advertising pages fall, and publishers are grimly cutting underperforming titles."

But the article, "Mostly Gloom for Glossies," is interesting not because it reports market conditions already well known to the readers of this blog. But because the print version is a static chart that highlights the plights of six glossy magazines while showing lines marking two dozen other magazines.

It's that the online version is much more useful for being interactive. You can click on each magazine, and more clearly see the trend of its advertising pages -- many more were flat than were apparent in the print version of the chart, and flat during this economy is actually good news.
It's an example of what online can do much better than print.

It's also an example of reporting that requires far less actual writing. (This post contains more copy than the Times article.) Even as the article compiles a lot of data.

Things Get Ugly for Fashion Mags

Check out "Massive Outlay of Ads No Longer in Vogue: Conde Nast Title, Others Sport Leaner Fall Looks as Marketings Hold Back." Aside from the usual clever WSJ headline & subhead, the article is interesting in looking at two things:

• Luxury advertisers are still doing well, and able to spend.
• Fashion books, which had been immune until now, are showing you can be -- at least from an advertising side -- to thin. W magazine (not related to the president) lost 17.67% of its ad pages.

Meanwhile, everyone in the fashion mag sector is expecting a tough 2009. As far as I can tell, red is not the new black. Bet we'll see mid-tier retailers and mid-tier magazines folding over the next few months.