Elle Girl may not have been what it seemed

Interesting observations from Editor John Harrington in his newsletter The New Single Copy, (sub requ'd) about the decision by Hachette Filipacchi Media to close the apparently successful print edition of Elle Girl. In fact, says Harrington, a magazine which gave every sign of prospering and having a bright future may, in fact, have been bleeding dollars and not showing any signs of being profitable soon.

The magazine had newsstand sales up 22.5% over the previous year and ad pages up 46.1%. Yet CEO Jack Kliger opted to go completely online. Harrington noted a couple of things:

• There may have been deep discounting off the printed ad rates, so those rising page counts might not have been matched by pocketable ad revenues.
• Elle Girl reduced its cover price to $1.99 in 2005. The year before, when the price tag was $2.99 its sales were down by 12% over the previous year. "So while, in 2005, its unit sales improved by more than 20%, total retail dollars were up by just a single percentage point, which probably did not cover the inflationary increases in the costs of newsstand marketing."