Esquire on its last legs? List of doom says two major mags will vanish by next year

Department of ghoulish speculation: The blog 24/7 wallst.com has created a list of the 12 major brands that will disappear in the next 18 months or so and among them are Esquire magazine and Architectural Digest.

Based on examining the public information available on some 100 brands, including sales information, brand histories, level of competition in each brand’s market and the extent to which that competition is growing the authors weighed the likelihood that a brand could be sold or spun off by parent companies. Among the well-known brands are Avis/Budget car rental, Borders bookstores, Crocs shoes, Gap stores and Saturn cars.

Here is the summary view of the two magazines which are and have been giant brands in the world of magazines:

5. Esquire Magazine is published by Hearst which is having substantial problems in both its newspaper and magazine divisions. Hearst recently threatened to close The San Francisco Chronicle after losing tens of millions of dollars during the last several years. It kept the paper open after the staff agreed to huge cuts. At about the same time, Hearst closed its paper in Seattle. The collapse in print advertising has pushed revenue at most of Hearst’s large magazines down by double digits after a bad year in 2008. Flagship titles such as Good Housekeeping and Cosmopolitan have been hit especially hard. Hearst is going to have to cut some of its anemic magazine titles. Esquire is among the weakest of the major men’s magazines on the basis of advertising page performance. Through April, ad pages at the magazine dropped 27% to 206. Men’s magazines are one of the most crowded categories in the industry. Esquire is up against GQ, Details, Men’s Journal, Maxim, and a number of men’s fitness and health publications. The men’s magazines which are performing the most poorly will not last long. Big publishers such as Hearst and Conde Nast have already proven that they will cut what they have to in a brutal environment.

7. Architectural Digest Magazine has lost 47% of its ad pages this year. The magazine is owned by Conde Nast which is controlled by the Newhouse family. Newhouse is having significant financial problems with both its newspaper operations, which used to be very profitable, and its magazine group. Architectural Digest is operating in an environment where high-end home sales and expensive redecorating have been driven out of the market. It is also up against a number of other home and shelter magazines. Publications which are losing nearly half of their ad pages are almost certainly not going to make it for another year no matter what subjects they cover. Conde Nast has already closed or cut back several of its magazines.