Cristina La Revista's closure as of its December publication did not come as a huge surprise to many industry insiders. Chiqui Cartagena, author of Latino Boom (Random House, 2005) and Managing Director of Multicultural Communications at Meredith Integrated Marketing in New York City,
sees the move as part of an effort by Editorial Televisa to narrow its focus and concentrate on the titles that have the most growth potential.
After 15 years in circulation the publication had a circulation of only 88,000 monthly. Celebrity magazines are difficult to sustain in any market. Oprah's O Magazine has been able to do it, but she is still on television everyday. When Cristina La Revista was launched Cristina also had a talk show that aired every afternoon. Now, she's on only once a week. Cristina has also begun to expand into other areas including furniture and clothing lines, which some industry insiders say has diluted her brand.
Cristina La Revista had 280 ad pages for January through October 2005 (down 2.2% from same period in 2004), according to Hispanic Magazine Monitor. Ad revenues for the same period totaled $2.9 million (+0.1% from last year). In terms of ad dollars, Cristina La Revista ranked third behind Vanidades and Cosmo en español. Vanidades had three times the ad revenues of Cristina La Revista, also according to Hispanic Magazine Monitor. The top three advertisers in Cristina La Revista were P&G, Direct Response advertisers (mostly telephone fortune tellers) and Publix Supermarkets.
In terms of advertising dollars, Franklin Mejias, Media Buyer at La Agencia de Orci, said he was planning to run ads in Cristina La Revista for clients in the Insurance and Telecommunications categories. Mejias says he will most likely reallocate those dollars to Vanidades, Fama, Cosmo en español
or Vogue en español“It's not necessarily the same content, but we can reach a similar demographic through these other titles.”
