Is 'Details' Nearly Done?
Might Details go the way of ElleGirl, Teen People, Life and all those other magazines that close their print versions to go web? A source in the advertising industry has begun thinking that Details' days are numbered, spurred by the fact that many of latest issue's ads came through from bundled corporate ad sales, instead of from the Details team, as a cross-magazine buy. But would it be so crazy if the content (but presumably not all of its staff!) were folded into men.style.com, "the online home of Details and GQ"? Let's look at the numbers!
A former Fairchild title, Details is a smallish magazine within the Conde Nast stable (not as small as Jane, though), so it's not surprising that its 2006 revenues were $65 million vs. GQ's 2006 comparatively whopping $190 million. That $65 million was a 13.5% increase over 2005. Its ad pages were also up 5.5 percent. And in the first three months of 2007, revenues were up a nice 24.4% and ad pages 9.7% compared to the previous year's period.
Hey, that's great! But let's remember the staff of ElleGirl, who were shocked when Hachette Filipacchi closed the magazine in May 2006 despite its strong numbers—they were showing better growth than Details. Your theories and speculation welcome!
