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Rodale Revenues Slip 23.2% in Q1

Revenues at Rodale shrunk by 23.2% in the first quarter of 2009, with print ad revenues down 18.4%. Ad pages fell 25.6%, nearly the same as the magazine industry average as a whole, based on data from the Publishers Information Bureau.

Online ad revenues, long an area of revenue growth, slipped 2.6%, writes MediaPost.

Men’s Health pages dropped 24.4%, Women’s Health fell 21.7% and Runner’s World dropped 34.5%.

On the positive side, Rodale saw record numbers of visitors and page views at Men’s Health and Women’s Health in the first quarter. And book sales have soared, up 353.3%, reports Folio. The company is putting more emphasis on its books and ecommerce, where margins are higher and growth allows for “exciting opportunities outside the magazine advertising space,” according to CEO Steven Pleshette Murphy.

Rodale recently folded Best Life, the Men’s Health spin-off that launched in 2004, with the May issue.

Consumer magazine ad pages fell 25.9% in the first quarter; ad revenue fell 20.2%, according to the PIB. Some of the largest slips in pages came from Conde Nast’s portfolio - which fell 60.9% in terms of ad pages and has since been folded - and Country Home, down 65% in pages. Blender, also ceasing publication, was down 55.9%.

OK was one of a few titles that saw significant increases, with a 22.4% jump in pages, per Folio.

eMarketer predicts that magazine ad spending will decline 16.2% in 2009.