Magazine advertising statistics

A statistics page that refuses to launder. Market-size figures for magazine advertising circulate widely, cite each other in a loop, and rarely name a dataset vintage; we checked the usual chains and print none of them. What we can publish is rarer and more useful: a complete, documented time series of how one national title actually repriced, from its own kits.

What this series actually evidences

• Audience decline, quantified. A 42% rate-base cut in two years at a mass-market national title, published by the publisher itself.^[1]
• Rational repricing. The full page fell from $76,301 to $44,331, tracking the audience cut almost exactly; price per thousand held near $32.^[1] Print deflation is audience-led, not discount-led.
• The transparency recession. The deeper statistic is the one this whole site documents: of the eight major sellers on our ledger, one publishes rates. In the 1990s, rate cards were the norm; SRDS printed volumes of them. The market did not just shrink; it went dark.

Stale numbers to stop citing

Three patterns fail our source check on page after page: market-size dollar figures quoted without year or dataset; "91% of adults read magazines" style reach claims that trace to old publisher-funded factbook editions presented as current^[3]; and channel-comparison charts whose print CPMs cite no card. Adjacent markets do better: podcast advertising's revenue series is published annually by the IAB with methodology attached.^[4] Until magazine trade bodies match that, treat unsourced print market stats as decoration.

Audience-side data: readership. Effectiveness evidence: ROI folio. Change log for every figure here: updates.