• Ad Age, Friday, April 6, 2007 12 PM

After recently changing editors and cutting jobs, Star magazine is now about to cut its average guaranteed paid circulation by 10%, or 150,000 copies, to 1.35 million. "A lot of this was precipitated by the latest postal increase, which is 11.7%," says John Miller, president-COO of parent American Media.

"We are expecting as an industry another increase a year from now, and that's a huge part of our subscription expense." He adds that the mag has talked to its advertisers, and "they like the transparency."

Some other top titles have also cut circulation of late, most notably Time, which sliced it by almost 20% to 3.25 million. Star has already missed a current 1.5 million rate base on eight out of 11 issues this year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. And that is odd because it is in the hottest category in magazines -- celebrity worship/gossip/news -- where growth has been relatively strong.

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