When fashion magazines revealed how poorly ad pages sold in their important September issues, they called their weakness temporary and incidental. "This is not about magazines, this is about the recession," one executive said. "It's going to be a while before it all comes back," said another. But surely even the recession can't explain this many lost ad pages -- the dominant source of magazine income and measure of their financial health. Monthlies' ad pages through their August issues had already sunk 22%, according to the Media Industry Newsletter, with drops topping 40% at Dwell, Ebony, Men's Journal, Town & Country, Gourmet, National Geographic Traveler, Veranda, Saltwater Sportsman, Teen Vogue, Sound & Vision, Wired and others. Then ad pages in fashion and beauty titles' big September issues -- the most important month for them and for their advertisers -- fell by double digits for nearly everyone. Some of those pages will return with a broader recovery, but many, sadly for the industry and many devoted readers, probably won't. The leading magazine brands and publishers will survive, but they'd better already be pivoting toward new revenue streams if they want a good position after the recession. "Any publisher who thinks that magazine spending is going to rebound to their levels before 2008 and 2009 is naive and deluding themselves," said Lee Doyle, North American CEO at Mediaedge:cia, one of the leading media agencies. The recession is only accelerating the fundamental changes going on, he said. Spending is moving into other areas -- with or without the downturn. More and supporting data ...