That’s the way the money goes

A neat little summary in PaidContent on some of the bigger publishers’ financials.

• NatMags: a pre-tax loss of £42.8m in 2008 – compared with a £10.8m profit in 2007
• Haymarket: pre-tax profits down from £8m in 2007 to £4.5m in 2008
• Reed Business Information: Profits fell 47% in H109 to £39m.
• UBM: In the first half of 2009, UBM’s profits fell by more than a quarter year on year to £48m.
• Centaur: First-half profits fell by 88% year on year to £1.7m.
• Euromoney: The DMGT-owned publisher has said it will meet its 2008/09 profit target of £57m for the year to 30 September.
• Future: For its H109, announced in May, Future saw its profits fall 70% to £1.2m.
• Economist Group: For the year to March 31, operating profits were 26% higher year on year at £56m.

Don’t panic! (12/10/09)

Down, down, deeper and down for consumer publishers in the US according to the Publishers Information Bureau (courtesy of Folio:)

During the third quarter 2009, [advertising] pages fell 26.6% compared to the same period last year. Estimated ad revenues for the third quarter closed at $4.53 billion, down 18.6%.

That 18.6% equates to $1 billion by the way. So that’s a billion down compared to the third quarter last year, which weren’t no bed of flowering heather to begin with.

Don’t Panic! (24/09/09)

Still no respite from ad carnage in the USA. The analysis of the October-dated monthlies by the Media industry Newsletter shows:

As in previous months, ad pages … were down across the board, affecting every category and virtually every major title. Out of 155 monthly titles tracked by MIN, 131 (84.5%) saw ad pages decline in October; of these, 111 (71.6% of the total) saw ad pages decline more than 10% for the month, 76 (49%) saw ad pages decline more than 20%, 42 (27.1%) saw ad pages decline more than 30%, and 22 (14.2%) saw ad pages decline more than 40%.

Don’t panic! (25/08/09)

Laest news from the US of A, courtesy of Folio:

Trade magazine advertising pages fell 30.2% through the first half of 2009, according to American Business Media’s Business Information Network numbers… Revenues, meanwhile, were down 26.5%.

Combined, magazine and trade show revenues declined 22.3%, ABM said.

Show me the money.

A slew of trading statements brings little cheer except in my wee cottage up here in windswept Barra.

Let’s start with our old pals in RBI:

• Profits halve at Reed Elsevier: Ian Smith, the chief executive, said: “The depth and length of the downturn is having some effect on even our most resilient businesses.”

• This leads to this news from the US: Reed Business Information Magazines Back on the Block

Then we have this:

• Time Warner. Revenue fell 22 per cent on a 26 per cent decline in advertising revenue and an 18 per cent drop in subscription revenue.

And closer to home

• Future has reported a year-on-year revenue fall of 9% in the nine months to the end of June… its circulation revenue … was down 8% and its ad revenue down 14%.
• While at UBM: B2B operations, which have closed 43 titles since 2007, reported revenue down 22.3%, with operating profit down from £13.8m to £3.3m in the first six months of 2009

Euro (less) money

According to the their latest trading statement, total revenues are down 11% at Euromoney – or an unpleasant 22% when one factors in the poor performance of the pound.

And there’s more.

As expected, the rate of subscription revenue growth is now declining …  The declines in advertising, sponsorship and delegate revenues, …, have continued at similar rates to those experienced in the second quarter.

So, the stuff that was doing badly continues to cause pain and the stuff that was going okay has started tanking.

Dive, dive, dive.

A fab graph from Silicon Alley Insider showing the decline in ad revenue for various US business magazines:

Couple that with a report in the FT that BusinessWeek might be put on the market for just $1 and you have a range of problems for some top brands.

Don’t panic! (13/07/09)

From the USA:

Consumer magazine ad pages continued to take a beating through the second quarter, plummeting 29.5%  compared to the same period in 2008… ad pages were down in each of the twelve categories tracked. (From Folio )

And from closer to home, a headline that really is clutching at the straws marked ‘optimism’:

Worst is over for UK ad market, says Bellwether report. Green shoots are sprouting in UK advertising and marketing budgets, according to the latest Bellwether report by trade body the IPA.

Which sounds great. In fact, because this is the IPA it’s talking up the report’s findings in a shocking (though unsurprising) way. A few more snippets that they drew less attention to:

• companies still had a slightly negative view of the prospects for the advertising industry
• the rates of decline slowed for all the main advertising categories (n.b. rates of decline slowed – we haven’t hit bottom yet)
• UK advertising expenditure is expected to fall 13.3% in 2009, revised [down] from previous estimate of 9.1%.
• A return to growth is not expected until the second half of next year.

Never, ever trust the figures given out by industry bodies.

Also Worthless

The Advertising Association have just released their stats on last year’s advertising expenditure. (That’s as in 2008 – prompt or what?) They show a 4% total drop in spend and a decline in newspapers and magazines of 11.8%.

Compared to what we’re all used to, that doesn’t seem so bad, but remember that in April last year, the AA was forecasting that 2008 would see overall growth of over 3%.

As mentioned before, it’s worth taking all AA forecasts with a bucket of salt.

Just another average day in the gloom factory

Euromoney reveals £41.8m loss
Euromoney Institutional Investor said trading would become worse before it gets better

BBC Magazines set to cut 30 staff
Publisher is looking to reduce its headcount by about 30 staff in a bid to cut costs and restructure its operations.