Follow-up on CK Media's Troubles

After surveying Creating Keepsakes' drop in advertising in the past 12 months, it seemed a good idea to follow-up with an examination of the advertising in the other CK Media magazine still in print: PaperCrafts.

The advertising situation in that title appears even more dire than in CK Media's flagship title. A year ago, just over 24% of the magazine was paid advertising.  The current issue is 8 pages shorter than the length in March 2008, and still only manages to contain 18.6% paid advertising. Considering that Creating Keepsakes' "good" numbers a year ago (when it appears they were already having trouble paying their bills) were 33-38%, 18.6% is dismal.

Are the advertising problems industry-wide? To a certain extent, it appears so - which isn't surprising to anyone following the publishing industry with magazines dropping right and left. A year ago, Scrapbooks Etc. was 32.25% paid advertising. Now, it is 8 pages shorter, and only 25.6% paid advertising content. Memory Makers' numbers look even worse: In May/June 2008 they were 31.64% paid advertising content. Now, they are 15.4% paid advertising content (although the same length).

While CK convention attendance has seemed strong to outside observers, that doesn't seem to mean they've been any better at paying their bills for that part of their operation. I've been receiving numerous reports of creditors who are owed overdue bills that run into as much as 5 digits from doing business with CK Media's convention department.

And apparently being on the magazine's masthead doesn't keep you off the list of the unpaid, either, as Creating Keepsakes' web hostess Erin Lincoln indicated this morning in a post to a thread on the CK message board about the company's troubles:

Which may be the biggest indicator of all of exactly how deep the company's troubles are.