Money Mags

We all know which food magazines we prefer, which ones have the tastiest recipes, which have the best stories, which have the prettiest pictures. But which ones do the pros like? Not the culinary pros, the advertisers. Show us the money!

Advertising Age surveyed the Top 300 magazines in terms of total revenue this month and the findings are interesting. First of all, of course, the so-called women’s magazines are by far more successful than what they call the “epicureans.” Better Homes and Gardens is the fifth top-grossing magazine in the country, with more than $595 million in total revenue and a paid circulation of 7.6 million.

Even Martha Stewart Living did far better than magazines with a more purely culinary slant, with $232 million in revenue and circulation of 2.3 million.

The top-selling cooking magazine is Bon Appetit, only No. 76 overall, with $99.8 million in revenue (up more than 30% since last year) and 1.2 million readers. Cooking Light (No. 98) is slightly ahead in circulation, with 1.4 million and $81 million in revenues.

Food and Wine (No. 104) and Gourmet (No. 107) follow with $78 million and $76 million in revenues respectively and 840,000 and 901,000 readers.

Niche publications Wine Spectator (No. 229) and Saveur (No. 288) wrap up the category with $30 million and $21 million, and 273,000 and 389,000 readers, respectively.

Dried-up Plums

Everyone knows that prunes are dried plums, but now it’s official. California prune growers this month won permission from the Food and Drug Administration to use that name for their products. The thing is, prunes have an image problem, tied up with regularity and the elderly.

“It’s a marketing question,” says Peggy Castaldi, marketing director of the California Prune Board. “We’re going for younger consumers and our surveys show they have a more positive feeling to the name dried plum. It’s more of a fruit goodness feeling.”

We can expect to start seeing the new name used in advertising as early as mid-July, though “dried plums” won’t show up on packaging until the next harvest this fall.

And what about the Prune Board itself--will it be changing its name? “That is something we’re going to be talking about,” says Castaldi.