• by October 22, 2003

THE NEW YORK ENQUIRER - Now that American Media chief David Pecker has officially thrown his hat into the three-ring circus that will be the auction of Primedia's New York magazine, we can't help wondering what editorial scenarios might arise from having the regional mag published by the same folks who produce supermarket tabs like the National Enquirer and the Star. Not that there's anything wrong with those publications. In fact, their editorial esteem appears to have grown in recent years due to some of their advanced reporting on some major national interest stories. Or could it be that former prestige journalism brands have sullied themselves to lower levels. In any case, we can just see those New York special features on extraterrestrial hot spots and two-headed boy eateries, not to mention Intelligenciers on Elvis sightings. But hey, if New York could survive Rupert Murdoch, it could survive anything.

SHACK-A-DELIC, BABY! - The Riff predicted as much following the Aug. 14 Northeast power outage and sure enough, Radio Shack today reported a surge in third quarter earnings. The company attributed the rise mainly to "reduced costs" and an increase in wireless phone sales and service contracts, but we know the real story is from a surge in demand for transistor radios, flashlights and batteries during and immediately following the blackout.

CLOSING THE BOOK - Book magazine, one of a flurry of literary industry magazines that launched during the late '90s, is closing its covers. The magazine, which published a smart mix of consumer and business news about books, authors and the publishing industry, apparently lost the support of its primary benefactor, book retail giant and co-owner Barnes & Noble. In addition to investing millions, Barnes & Noble provided an innovative distribution mechanism for Book, which was a free club magazine to customers who signed up for its Readers' Advantage program. But the writing may already have been on the wall for Book. When Barnes and Noble ended the subscription program, Book's circulation dropped to 150,000 from a peak of 1.4 million subscribers. That's the kind of circulation rate base adjustments that would be difficult for any title to survive. While there was no word on what would be come of the magazine's founders - editor-in-chief Jerome Kramer and publisher (and former Advertising Age reporter) Mark Gleason - the Riff, for one, will be waiting for the book on Book to come out. But don't look for it to be distributed by Barnes & Noble. Amazon.com, perhaps?

COULD IT BE THAT COUNT OLAF IS AT WORK HERE? - Speaking of books, the Riff is so relieved - or should we be alarmed - to learn that UnfortunateEvents.com is up and running again. We were quite unsettled when we received an email on Oct. 6 from the Unfortunate Team alerting us that "an organization calling themselves 'The Happy Endings Foundation' appear to have breached security on the site and are intent on the downfall of your favorite author and all he represents. Despicable behavior if ever we heart it." Well, if you're not familiar with this site or the series of Unfortunate Events books it is designed to promote, you probably don't have a tween-age child milling around your abode. The books and their author, who goes by the pseudo name of Limony Snicket, are only the most popular literature to hit young readers since R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series. But since the books always end with, well, unfortunate endings, we aren't sure how to react to the happy resolution of the site's recent publishing problems. But wait, there may be an unhappy ending to this one, too. While the unfortunate team says UnfortunateEvents.com has been "restored to its rightful place" and is chock'ful of new features, it does not appear to be in proper working order. Among the "special prizes" it's offering users are the chance to win tickets to Disney's "new feature film "Holes." Holes, for Riff fans, who've already acknowledged not having tweens in their midst, was the hit film based on another incredibly popular children's book, that was released last spring. One thing we're hoping the Unfortunate Team does get right is the release date of its own forthcoming film. It stars Jim Carrey as the series' evil antagonist Count Olaf and is sure to be a blockbuster hit, a phrase, which here means, they will make a lot of money for the soon-to-be-even-more- fortunate team.