Abstract
The economic recession of the late 1970s and early 1980s profoundly affected one of the strongest magazine categories — the “seven sisters.” After years of leading the industry, it suffered significant declines in growth and profitability in 1979. By 1980 advertising volume was down for all but Good Housekeeping and Woman’s Day, and only Better Homes and Woman’s Day had not suffered drops in circulation.1 The declines continued throughout the early 1980s while publishers and editors tried a number of new ploys to attract advertisers and readers.
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Notes
Nancy Yoshihara, “Women’s Magazine Dilemma,” Los Angeles Times, 23 December 1979, IV, pp. 1 and 5; and The Folio: 400/1981, p. 188.
Christy Marshall, “Why Women’s Books Sag,” Advertising Age, 6 April 1981, pp. 3 and 83;
N. R. Kleinfield, “Major Magazines Losing Ad Pages,” New York Times, 5 May 1981, pp. D1 and D12;
Colby Coates and Stuart Emmrich, “Outlook Mixed for Media,” Advertising Age, 15 February 1982, pp. 1 and 84.
See Jan Jaben, “A Fire Sale Ahead? WD May Prove a Tough Sell,” Publishing News, June 1990, 1ff.
Diamandis quoted in Ira Ellenthal, “Behind the Lines,” Folio, February 1984, pp. 47–8.
See Coates and Emmrich, “Outlook Mixed for Media” and the advertisement for Woman’s Day, Advertising Age, 2 March 1981, p. 24.
In 1937 Woman’s Day was enlarged into a magazine and still distributed free in A & P stores, with a circulation of 775,000. When demand soared for both magazines, the publishers began to charge 5 cents a copy. By 1952 Woman’s Day claimed a circulation of 3.8 million and over $6 million in annual advertising revenue even though it was still distributed only in A & P supermarkets. In 1956, however, two Chicago wholesalers and twenty-three food retailers sued A & P and several food companies, charging antitrust violations because A & P published the magazine as a competitive device to increase sales in its stores. The suit was initially dismissed but that decision was later overturned. With its ad revenues declining, A & P sold the magazine to Fawcett Publications in 1958. That year Family Circle bought out one of its other supermarket competitors, Everywoman’s magazine and claimed a new circulation for the combined publication of five million. In 1962 Cowles Magazines and Broadcasting bought Family Circle for $4.3 million in stock. See Stuart J. Emmrich, “Family Circle Marks 50th,” Advertising Age, 6 September 1982, p. 10;
James Playstead Wood, Magazines in the United States, 3rd edn (New York: The Ronald Press, 1971), pp. 293–303;
Theodore Peterson, Magazines in the Twentieth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964), pp. 283–4, 288–90;
William H. Taft, American Magazines for the 1980s (New York: Hastings House Publishers, 1982.)
See Ira Ellenthal, “Profile: Ellen Levine,” Folio, April 1983, pp. 68–70.
Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: New American Library, 1953; originally published 1899), p. 126.
See Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines, Vol. 5 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), pp. 137–42.
Women and Advertising: A Motivational Study of the Attitudes of Women Toward Eight Magazines (New York: Good Housekeeping Magazine, 1954) cited in C. H. Sandage and Vernon Fryburger, Advertising Theory and Practice, 6th edn (Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin Inc., 1963), p. 438.
See, for example, Camilla R. Bittle, “Precious Moment,” Good Housekeeping, October 1983, pp. 166 – 7;
Isobel Stewart, “In the Arms of Love,” Good Housekeeping, May 1981, pp. 154–5;
Marsha Portnoy, “Loving Strangers,” McCall’s, February 1983, pp. 88ff;
Jessie Schell, “Two Against One,” McCall’s, October 1983, pp. 154ff.
See Cecelia Reed, “McCall’s Works to Keep Dialog Going,” Advertising Age, 18 October 1984, p. 43.
So termed by Sandra Forsyth Enos, Articles Editor, Ladies’ Home Journal, quoted in Bernadine Clark, “The Women’s Magazine Rack,” Writer’s Digest, June 1983, p. 25.
Offering between 130 and 150 separate advertising editions each month, Better Homes and Gardens targets separate regions of the country, specific states, and even parts of states, along with fifty-six individual cities known as “top markets.” Several advertising editions reach only upscale readers. Discounts are given to food advertisers purchasing space -in- special recipe sections and to companies buying ads in the “Family Health” sections. These multiple options attract many advertisers: the magazine’s 1983 ad revenue totalled $109,038,000, the second largest in the country of all monthlies, surpassed only by Good Housekeeping. See SRDS, 27 July 1983, pp. 249–51; Jack Hafferkamp, “Magazines: Prognosis Bodes Well for a Steady Recovery,” Advertising Age, 17 October 1983, pp. M-9ff, and The Folio: 400/1984, p. 87.
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© 1993 Ellen McCracken
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McCracken, E. (1993). Service and Home: The Seven Sisters Adapt to the 1980s. In: Decoding Women’s Magazines. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22381-7_7
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