Hachette Filipacchi Media announced this week it will cease publishing home décor shelter magazine Metropolitan Home following the December issue. The most recent of several décor magazines to shut down, the magazine fell victim to an industry slump in advertising revenue. According to Publishers Information Bureau, ad pages sold by the magazine in the third quarter fell by 36 percent from 2008.
While the trendy, upscale homes featured in Metropolitan Home were often not representative of Texas-style living, the furnishings and interior design included within the pages offered inspiration and excitement. This mainstay of the homefurnishings industry will be missed.
Sadder still is the demise of magazines closer to our hearts here in Texas. Time Inc. announced in August that it would no longer publish Southern Accents after the September/October issue. Illustrating homes which exhibit a Southern influence and offering practical decorating content, the magazine was both sophisticated and realistic. Also impacted by a major decline in advertising income, the magazine’s ad pages dropped 37 percent in the first half of this year.
Unfortunately, the end of these two home décor magazines is part of a distressing trend. As marketing budgets have been cut and competition has increased from online media, magazine owners have been forced to cut costs and close unprofitable titles.
For these reasons plus a poor housing market and reduced spending on home décor, we can expect publishers of home magazines to take an increasingly closer look at the future of their décor magazines.
Other decorating magazines to close within the last two years include Oprah’s O at Home, Country Home, Cottage Living, House & Garden, Blueprint and Domino.
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