Shelter Magazines Dropping Like Flies

On Wednesday of this week, Conde Nast Publications announced that Domino, the shopping and home decor magazine will cease publication with its March issue.

In the last year, magazines Blueprint, (a Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia publication), InStyle Home, O at Home, Cottage Living, Country Home, and Home magazine have all ceased publication due to a sharp decline in advertising dollars. In 2007, Vogue Living and House and Garden closed their publishing doors.

I can't help but mourn the loss of these magazines and fear for the future of others.

With the economy is a downward spiral that just doesn't seem to end, advertisers are cutting back on their spending. Not a good thing for magazines who need that advertising to survive. In a recent interview with Media Post, Martha eluded to the struggles experienced with the decrease in advertising dollars:

" We’ve never had a downturn before except for when I was involved in that horrible lawsuit. Our customers have been there, buying the magazine. This is really an advertising problem for magazines, and it’s also an expendable income problem. When people are standing there with a finite amount of cash in their pocketbook, do they buy magazines at the newsstand? That said, we have fared moderately OK. We’re kind of fortunate in the fact that we’re an omnimedia company, so we’re able to offer advertising in magazines and radio, on television and on the Internet, and we also have retail partners. And that model has proven to be the model everyone wants to emulate now."

To have Martha indicate that the company fared 'moderately Ok,' certainly indicates MSLO has felt the advertising dollar pinch as well. Looking at recent issues of Martha Stewart Living, you can see the decrease in pages... a clear indication of advertising troubles.

What can we as consumers do? Our options are limited but it's important to support the advertisers that do spend their budgets on MSLO publications. Buy the products (when possible) and communicate with the companies and let them know you saw them in one of the MSLO magazines. If they can begin to see an interest and a return on their investment, they are more likely to spend dollars with the publication.

I can't even imagine NOT having Martha Stewart Living magazine. Let's just hope that MSLO can weather this storm. They've done it once and came back with great success. They need to pull on that strength once again.