With sales hurt by the recent rise in newsstand prices, Bauer Publishing is cutting the rate bases for its two weekly celebrity gossip magazines:
In Touch and
Life & Style.
In
Touch's guaranteed circulation will now be 1 million, down from 1.2 million;
Life & Style's will be cut to 550,000, down from 700,000. The move portends more trouble for celebrity gossip
rags, in recent years the darling of media executives, thanks to seemingly unstoppable growth in circulation and ad pages.
The rate-base cuts were prompted by substantial drops in
newsstand sales after Bauer raised the price of both magazines by $1.00 to $2.99 in November 2007. In the four weeks immediately following the price hike, newsstand sales slid an alarming 33%, but
rebounded somewhat, with the decline narrowing to 23%. Almost all of the titles' circulation comes via newsstand sales.
Bauer and other celebrity magazine publishers have been locked in a battle
with wholesale magazine distributors that want them to raise newsstand prices to make sales more profitable.
Earlier this week, OK!, published by Northern & Shell, said it will raise its
newsstand price again, from $2.99 to $3.49. Rival American Media's Star is set to rise from $3.49 to $3.99. Wenner Media's Us Weekly--which leads the pack of relatively new celeb
titles--raised its price to $3.99 in October, a month before Bauer hiked prices at its 11 titles.
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