Businessweek.com Growth Plummeting (MHP)

It's a blip in McGraw-Hill's crummy 4Q earnings report (revenue down 1.5%, profits down 31%, dragged down by the foundering S&P group), but of great concern to some folks we know: Not only is BusinessWeek magazine in trouble, but its website isn't picking up the slack.

As we noted earlier, BusinessWeek's ad pages are down: A 21.8% drop for Q4 and a 18.2% decrease for the year. Bad enough, given that the business mag category hasn't been uniformly hit. Worse: The website, where the magazine has been directing resources, has seen growth drop off. Advertising was up 10.5% for Q4 and 14.8% for the year, a substantial drop from last year's 46% increase. During the MHP conference call, management said it would increase magazine ad rates by 4% this year, but unless there's a dramatic turnaround, we don't see how the magazine will avoid more layoffs.

See Also: BusinessWeek Revenue Awful: Layoffs Coming Soon?
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