Organic Gardening magazine shows strong ad revenue in 2008 despite recession

A well-defined target market, such as the readers of
Organic Gardening magazine, may be the key to
magazine survival in the current recession.

2008 was not kind to print magazine publishers. But some well-targeted food and garden magazines bucked the trend and still managed to turn strong advertising revenues, even in the recession year.

That's the report from Publishers Information Bureau (PIB). In its annual report, the PIB showed that overall the number of advertising pages fell by 11.7% and revenues fell by 7.6% in 2008.

It was some of the magazines that serve a broadly dispersed audience that were hardest hit, including Home (down 37.4%), Everyday Food (down 14.4%), Gourmet (down 19%) and Cooking Light (down14%). Of course, last year also saw the demise of two magazines that at least partially served the gardener demographic--Cottage Living and House & Garden.

Magazines that are highly targeted to serve particular segments of the market seemed to fare better, despite the ailing economy. Among those magazines showing the strongest ad revenue increases was Organic Gardening, with a 27.1% advertising revenue increase.

Similarly, home magazine Domino posted a 24.3% increase, while food magazines Every Day with Rachael Ray boasted a 24.5% increase and Cooking with Paula Deen an 11.3% increase.

As advertisers tighten their belts, they no longer have the luxury of throwing money at broad demographic groups, but must target their efforts to the groups most likely to respond to their messages.

The message for 2009 may be this: Specialize to survive.

Here are some selected ad revenues in the home and food segment. For more information see the PBI report.