Esquire in peril! Esquire says "don't be stupid"

JayFarrar · Apr 24, 2009

The stock guy who wrote the piece on the 10 papers that will die this year is back with brands that will die.

5. Esquire Magazine is published by Hearst which is having substantial problems in both its newspaper and magazine divisions. Hearst recently threatened to close The San Francisco Chronicle after losing tens of millions of dollars during the last several years. It kept the paper open after the staff agreed to huge cuts. At about the same time, Hearst closed its paper in Seattle. The collapse in print advertising has pushed revenue at most of Hearst’s large magazines down by double digits after a bad year in 2008. Flagship titles such as Good Housekeeping and Cosmopolitan have been hit especially hard. Hearst is going to have to cut some of its anemic magazine titles. Esquire is among the weakest of the major men’s magazines on the basis of advertising page performance. Through April, ad pages at the magazine dropped 27% to 206. Men’s magazines are one of the most crowded categories in the industry. Esquire is up against GQ, Details, Men’s Journal, Maxim, and a number of men’s fitness and health publications. The men’s magazines which are performing the most poorly will not last long. Big publishers such as Hearst and Conde Nast have already proven that they will cut what they have to in a brutal environment.
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Esquire responds

On April 15, a blog called 24/7 Wall Street included Esquire in a list of brands that might have difficulty surviving the current economic downturn. The sole piece of evidence cited was the fact that, in the competitive marketplace of men's magazines, Esquire's ad pages are down 27 percent in 2009.
True enough. (Or close enough; the number is actually 25 percent.) There are several more important indicators, however, that offer some valuable context for that number. In the men's field, Esquire is actually gaining advertising market share, as two of our closest competitors for advertising pages have suffered declines of more than 35 percent in the same time period. One might also consider the fact that other magazines that formerly competed for ad paging, Men's Vogue and Best Life, either no longer publish or no longer publish as stand-alone magazines.
Moreover, the Esquire brand has shown stunning vitality in the recent past.
Esquire was the only magazine in its field to increase its newsstand sales in the second half of 2008. Esquire also launched a successful new spin-off publication three years ago, Esquire's Big Black Book, which just expanded its frequency to twice a year with the new spring edition. And Esquire is one of the fastest-growing brands in the international marketplace, launching successful editions in four countries in the last two years (bringing the total to sixteen) and anticipating additional international editions in the future.
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Dammit, I just subscribed for $5, Esquire better not be going away.

Mizzougrad96 · Apr 24, 2009

One of the few magazines I still get.

Frank_Ridgeway · Apr 24, 2009

When he did the newspaper death-watch list, the Fort Worth publisher called bullshit, too.

Inky_Wretch · Apr 24, 2009

Esquire going bankrupt? Only if they've given The Jones an open bar tab.

ServeItUp · Apr 24, 2009

Inky_Wretch said:

Esquire going bankrupt? Only if they've given The Jones an open bar tab.
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Speaking of Jones, while he has been producing some strong stuff for Esquire (and thus helping its bottom line, to keep the thread on topic), he hasn't been around since November, per his profile. That's a bummer. Could use a reference to licking a waffle iron right about now...

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Esquire in peril! Esquire says "don't be stupid"

JayFarrar Well-Known Member

Mizzougrad96 Active Member

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Esquire in peril! Esquire says "don't be stupid"

JayFarrar Well-Known Member

Mizzougrad96 Active Member

Frank_Ridgeway Well-Known Member

Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

ServeItUp Active Member

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