Print Is Dead? 'Vogue' Has Its Second Biggest Issue Ever

Print is alive and booming — at least if you're Vogue. Enjoying a recent resurgence in print advertising investments from fashion, luxury and beauty companies, among other categories, the 121-year-old fashion title announced Thursday that it sold 665 pages in its September issue — its second most ever.

The current record holder is Vogue's September 2007 issue, which had 727 ad pagesVogue hit a low in September 2009 with just 447 ad pages, and has been recovering steadily in the four years since.

In all, parent company Conde Nast says it is having its best September in five years, with overall ad page growth at 5%. Thirteen titles beat ad page counts over last September, most notably Bon Appétit, which sold 91 ad pages, a 49% increase over last year. Glamour was up 18% to 224 ad pages, W was up 17% to 288 ad pages and Teen Vogue was up 12% to 162 ad pages. Hearst also saw double-digit gains for women's and men's lifestyle titles including Cosmopolitan, Elle, Esquire and Marie Claire.

Things may be looking up for high-end lifestyle magazines, but times are still tough elsewhere. Ad pages at news magazines were down 18% for the first half of the year, with The Economist and The Week reporting year-over-year declines of 24% and 23%, respectively. Collectively, consumer magazine ad pages decreased 4.9% in the first half of 2013.

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