It was a dismal year for magazine publishers and it was particularly painful for Condé Nast, which has closed several titles this year including Gourmet and shelter mag Domino. As it puts the finishing touches on its final ’09 issues, the publisher told the NYT that it expects ad pages to be down by 31.6 percent. That’s the loss of a whopping 8,359 ad pages.
The estimates, which are based on Publishers Information Bureau’s data from January through September along with Condé Nast’s internal records, do show some ups as well as downs. On the plus side, Glamour was up 6.6 in December, for example.
The company is promising a turnaround next year. Lucky, whose November ad pages were down 22.7 percent year on year, will be down only 8.8 percent next month (again year on year), Conde Nast says. In January, sources tell paidContent, the magazine’s ad pages will be up over 20 percent year on year. Architectural Digest, which had almost a 50 percent drop in ad pages this year, will be up more than 30 percent in January over the same month in ’09.

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