Magazine Statistics

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Using Magazine Statistics

Operational statistics are an excellent tool for monitoring the operations of your magazine or journal. By comparing the statistics to monthly trends, budget, and the prior year management can identify areas of concern that are not revealed by the standard financial statements. In most magazine companies a statistics sheet accompanies the standard financial statements. Your financial manager should run an analysis that compares your magazine to the competition.

You want to see the statistics in two formats; trend report and a MTD/YTD comparison.

1> Trend Report

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
Editorial Pages	50	50	120	70	80
Advertising Pages	50	50	80	30	20
Total Pages	100	100	200	100	100
Editorial %	50%	50%	60%	70%	80%

2> MTD and YTD Comparison

Current Month				Year to Date
Actual	Budget	Prior Yr		Actual	Budget	Prior Year
80	40	50	Editorial Pages	370	250	200
20	50	40	Advertising Pages	230	250	225
100	90	90	Total Pages	600	500	425
80%	44%	55%	Editorial %	61%	50%	47%

Revenue Statistics

Advertising:

	Paid Display Adv Pages
	Average Net Page Rate (Ad revenue less commissions and discounts)
	Classified Pages
	Average Net Page Rate (for classified advertising)

Subscriptions:

	Net Paid Subs (000)
	Gross Sub Copies (000)
	Average Net per Copy

Single Copy

	Draw - Distributor (000)
	Est. Sales (000)
	Est. Sales %
	Average Cover Price
	Average Revenue per Copy

Magazine Size Statistics

	Editorial pages
	Display pages (advertising)
	Classified pages
	Free/House/Public Service
	Total Magazine Size (sum of the above)
	Editorial %

Note: Many magazines do not have classified ads.

Print Order

	Subscriber Copies
	Newsstand
	Office/Show
	Comps
	Total Print Order
	Maximum print run per contract (typically 1% above print order)
	Actual copies printed

Note: By comparing the maximum print run to the actual number of copies printed you can see if you are overpaying for production.

Note: The above statistics come from a Folio Show 2001 seminar hosted by the Magazine Consulting Group.

Book of the Month
(Updated 9/15/2002)

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