Advertising revenues surge to record levels for publishers in 1999

March 27, 2000 - The Magazine Publishers of America, the industry association for consumer magazines, reports that advertising in 1999 in the U.S. grew to USD $15.5B, a whopping record increase of almost 13% over 1998.

When the Sunday newspaper magazines, like Parade and the New York Times Magazine, are added to the total, the final U.S. advertising revenue adds another billion dollars to top out at $16.5B (yes, with a B).

In dollars of the thirteen advertising categories tracked, nine showed growth. The three top categories were:

Retail	54% growth
Cigarettes and tobacco	31%
Media and advertising	25%

In page count, the top three categories were:

The January and February 2000 figures, which are just in, show that the trend is continuing. February alone brought in $1.2B in revenues. The MPA is excited over the double-digit growth of 15% over February 1999 with a 12% increase year-to-date over the same time last year. "Our year-to-date growth of 15.4% has far exceeded the 4.9% growth posted last year at this time," said Christine Miller, Executive Vice President of Marketing.

The MPA is the industry association for the consumer magazine business and has as one of its missions to be the marketing force to increase the share that magazines capture of advertising dollars and of reader time and money. It states it represents more than 240 U.S. publishing companies with approximately 1,400 titles and more than 80 international companies.