MediaRadar Blog

The Magazine That’s Actually Eliminating Ads – and Jobs

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About 20 more people could be facing the ax at stressed-out Rodale.

The pending cuts mean close to 70 people — or about 10 percent of its 700-person workforce — will have been cut since the fall.

The latest cuts center around one Rodale title, Prevention, which on Monday announced that it was going to go ad-free starting with the July issue.

Rodale hopes the loss of advertising revenue will be partially offset by the planned increase in Prevention’s cover price to $4.99 from $3.99 — with a corresponding increase in its subscription rate.

But Publisher Lori Burgess and about 20 people on the ad business side are expected to be out of their jobs sometime in May — after the June issue goes to press.

Rodale Chief Executive Maria Rodale said she would “try to transition them to other jobs in the company.”

Prevention registered a 34 percent decline in print circulation in the first half of 2015, to 1.8 million copies, according to The Alliance for Audited Media.

But the title saw a 14 percent gain in ad pages in 2015 compared to 2014, according to MediaRadar.

On a panel discussion at the recent American Magazine Media Conference, Rodale said, “It has been a struggle with advertisers for a long time and readers didn’t really like the ads.”

Without an advertising rate base to satisfy, circulation does not have to be propped up at a certain level to appease ad customers.

The gamble is that the lower costs and the increased circulation revenue will be enough to keep the second-oldest magazine in the family’s stable of health and fitness titles stable.

The Magazine Media 360° Brand Audience Report said that when digital audience is added, Prevention’s total audience actually grew 14 percent, despite the slide in print.