Print Magazines Supersize Sept.

Fall Print Page Numbers Set New Records

Jul 22, 2007

Despite the clamor about the death of print, for some lucky magazines, ad pages have hit an all-time high way above the traditional ginormnous'ness of the September issue

No, believe it or not that’s not the phone book clogging up your mail box…it’s actually the brick-sized behemoth aka the September issue of your fave fashion magazine. With popular books such as American Vogue setting a new record for the most pages ever printed for a monthly, including a jaw-dropping 727 ad pages – part of an annual 16 percent increase to a record-breaking 2,297 ad pages which more than topped In Style’s 2,216 pages (representing a 7 percent decline annually) – supersizing is the hot new trend in print publishing.

Although Men's Health, Elle, W and Harper's Bazaar will all be showing off their biggest issues ever, titles like Lucky, Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, Teen Vogue, and Maxim are all posting fewer pages – the flipside of the trend identified by Publishers Information Bureau. "That's all from one word — automotive," Rob Gregory, Maxim's group publisher, recently told WWD (September Fashion Issues Go Plus Sized, Friday, July 20, 2007).