• New York Post, Sunday, September 13, 2009 9:37 PM

TV Guide, starting next month, will drop its current rate base more than 30% -- from 2.9 million down to 2 million. It follows the January lowering of the rate base from 3.2 million to 2.9, which in turn followed a cut in October 2005 from 9 million down to 3.2 million.

In TV Guide's glory days, the bulk of its circulation came from sales at newsstands. Now, the overwhelming majority of the circulation is mailed to homes, and with ad pages down 28% through the Sept. 7 issue, advertising is no longer paying the freight. Jack Kliger, the former Hachette Filipacchi CEO who is running the business as a consultant, says the magazine now makes money on circulation. "I just said let's focus on the highest yielding subscriptions and eliminate the lowest yielding subs."

Many publishers are cutting cheap circulation. Reader's Digest is reducing its 8 million circulation down to 5.5 million and Newsweek will drop from 3.1 million to 1.5 million by the start of next year.

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