B2B Readership Up 42 Percent Over 1999.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 21, 2000

Fairfield Research (Lincoln, Neb.) just released its Media Intelligence 2000 study. The study reports outstanding growth in readership of business and trade publications, showing an increase of 42% from 1999 -- 20.7 million more adults are reading these publications daily. Nearly half (32.7 million) of these readers are female.

With more adults reading these publications, the time spent reading them has also increased -- 39%. Time spent with other media:

-- Business/Trade Magazines - Up 39%

-- Newspapers - Up 12%

-- Internet - Flat

-- Consumer Magazines - Down 24%

-- Radio - Down 12%

-- Television - Down 5%

Every day, 69.7 million American adults spend at least 40 minutes reading a business or trade publication. "This growth is certainly no surprise as we have seen a 9% increase in ad revenues and a 4% increase in ad pages (BIN/CMR) through April, with higher forecasts for the rest of the year. We also know that these revenues come from a much broader base of magazines than in past years," said Gordon T. Hughes II, president/CEO, American Business Media.

Compared to other media, time spent reading business and trade publications has not been effected by Internet usage. "This is due to the high level of credibility and reliability of information found in b2b publications as proven in previous research," said Hughes. "These 70 million adults do certainly rely on the Internet for information, yet there appears to be no negative impact of the Internet on business and trade publications as we see for other media. As well, readers who are on-line at home actually spend MORE time with their business and trade publications than readers who are not on-line," said Gary Gabelhouse, CEO, Fairfield Research. This reflects a trend reported by Fairfield Research that the average American adult in 2000 is consuming more information- and communication-based media and less entertainment-based media.

Founded in 1907, American Business Media is the industry association for global information providers that produce magazines, Web sites, trades shows, conferences, newsletters and other media. These member companies reach an audience of more than 39 million professionals and generate more than $16 billion in industry revenues.

Fairfield's Media Intelligence Study has been conducted annually in July since 1995. Since the first study wave, time spent with business and trade publications has grown 125% -- a rate of 25% annually. Fairfield Research (est. 1984) is a full-service media research company, based in Lincoln, Neb.