SEEMS THERE'S LESS OF US
RATE-BASE PROMISE TO ADVERTISERS OFF 4.1% THIS YEAR
Posted: 3:44 am
July 11, 2008
NOW we have an inkling as to why 62-year-old Jann Wenner might want to take the money and run when it comes to Us Weekly.
In a just-released industry report, it appears that the magazine, which has grown by leaps and bounds for most of the past eight years, may finally be reaching its peak.
Based on the first five months of this year, Us Weekly is having a little trouble meeting its commitment to advertisers to sell 1.9 million copies a week via subscriptions or newsstand sales.
According to the industry newsletter Circ Matters, Us Weekly is 4.1 percent below its new 2008 rate-base promise for the January-to-May period. The report is based on sales for the 19 issues that the Wenner Media-owned magazine has on file with the Audit Bureau of Circulations Rapid Report.
To be fair, Rapid Report is a fairly new invention and there is some rough estimating involved. It is based on returns from wholesalers, so there might be some adjustments when the ABC's FAS-FAX report for the first full half are released in several weeks.
Us Weekly Publisher Victoria Lasdon Rose insisted, "We do fully intend to make our rate base."
In the second half of 2007, the magazine was promising to deliver only 1.85 million copies. It made it only because it was able to add 83,727 "verified" copies a week to its paid circulation, which pushed the total to 1,928,852.
"Verified" are basically free copies that the ABC determines were handed out rather than dumped in a landfill.
They are used to keep advertisers happy, but are not considered to be quite as high-quality as copies that are paid for.
Janice Min, editor of Us Weekly, insisted that the magazine has had eight years of "spectacular growth," but "record gas and food prices" have worked against them in the first half of this year.
While conceding that newsstand sales had slipped in the first half, Min said the magazine is off to a good start in the second half, thanks in large measure to breaking the Alex Rodriguez-Madonna dalliance.
Payoff
The decision by Time Inc. Editor-in-Chief John Huey and CEO Ann Moore to allow People magazine to pay top dollar for celebrity baby and wedding pictures has paid off in increased newsstand sales.
