Do media consumers really dislike advertising? An empirical assessment of the role of advertising in print media markets

This paper uses data on German consumer magazines observed between 1992 and 2004 to analyze the extent to which consumers (dis-)like advertising. We estimate logit demand models separately for the six most important magazine segments in terms of circulation. We find little evidence for readers disliking advertising. On the contrary, we show that readers in many magazine segments appreciate advertising. Readers of Women's magazines, Business and politics magazines as well as Car magazines - market segments where advertisements are relatively more informative - appreciate advertising while advertising is nuisance to readers of Adult magazines, a segment where advertisements are particularly uninformative. Demand for interior design magazines is not well identified. Our logit demand estimates are confirmed by logit demand models with random coefficients and by magazine-specific monopoly demand models. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.