Enquirer sold for $100M, but who’ll be editor?
NOW that the National Enquirer, the troubled supermarket tabloid, has a deal to be sold for $100 million, the guessing game is on to see who will be the editor-in-chief.
The Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., has agreed to unload the paper, along with two smaller supermarket tabloids — the Globe and the National Examiner — to James Cohen, CEO of magazine wholesale distributor Hudson News, Cohen told The Post, confirming an earlier report by the Washington Post.
“It’s a great brand in a declining industry. We have to figure out ways to leverage the brand for the future,” Cohen said in a conversation that included talk of cable shows, podcasts and theme parks.
But he would not commit to keeping Dylan Howard, who is editorial director of the Enquirer and other American Media Inc. brands.
“None of the details are there yet for circulation, production and editorial,” Cohen said of a shared-services contract that still has to be hammered out. Asked if Howard would still oversee editorial once the deal is completed, he said, “I don’t know enough to say one way or the other.”
The newsstand market, where the three titles sell the bulk of their copies, is extremely challenged.
The Enquirer, which was selling 4.7 million copies a week 30 years ago when the estate of Generoso Pope Jr. sold it for $412.5 million, is currently selling an average of only 151,785 on newsstands, according to the Alliance for Audited Media, with another 63,371 in subscriptions for total paid circulation of 215,157 in the six months ending Dec. 31, 2018. The Globe was selling 117,482 copies a week. The National Examiner doesn’t report to AAM, but is estimated to be selling about 50,000 a week.
Cohen’s newsstand clout could help. “I’m the biggest and last independent wholesaler in the United States,” Cohen said. “I do the East Coast down to the Carolinas.”
Interestingly, about 70 percent of the rest of the wholesale market is under control of another company, owned by none other than Anthony Melchiorre’s Chatham Asset Management, which also is the majority owner of AMI.
Despite the prolonged newsstand slump, the press release insisted the three tabloids are profitable.
“The sale of these brands shows their vitality in today’s newsstand marketplace, where they continue to generate nearly $30 million in profit annually,” American Media Inc. CEO David Pecker said in a press release announcing the deal.
AMI put the three tabloids on the market because Melchiorre had reportedly grown disenchanted with the reporting tactics of the Enquirer.
Cohen retains 100 percent control of the Hudson News wholesale distributor, which trucks magazines from printers to the retail outlets. But he’s flush with cash thanks to the 2008 deal whereby he sold his Hudson retail operations to a private equity firm that merged it into duty-free shop pioneer Dufry International. The two companies are independent of each other.
The release of the Mueller report was good news for three publishers who saw their books on special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s nearly two-year investigationn zooming up the Amazon best-seller list Thursday.
The top seller, “The Mueller Report: The Final Report of the Special Counsel into Donald Trump, Russia and Collusion” from Skyhorse Publishing, climbed to as high No. 9 by Thursday evening.
“My feeling is this is the most important reading in the country regardless of which side you’re on,” said Tony Lyons, publisher and president of Skyhorse, “And [with] the best marketing campaign in the world, it promises to be a main topic of conversation for months.”
He said he said rushed a PDF copy on Thursday morning by bicycle to lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who is writing the introduction. Skyhorse plans an initial printing of 200,000 copies with the first shipments expected April 25 or 26 with a price of $12.99, but available for $9.20 on Amazon and B&N.com.
Scribner’s “The Mueller Report,” with analysis from the Washington Post, was narrowing the gap, closing in on No. 14 on the Amazon list by Thursday evening.
“The trade paperback edition is coming off the press on April 26 or earlier,” said Brian Belffiglio, VP and director of publicity at Scribner. The publisher plans a first printing of 350,000 with a list price of $15 and an Amazon and B&N price of $12.99. “We are prepared to reprint as rapidly as necessary,” he said. For those who can’t wait for the print version, Scribner expects to publish an e-book for $7.99 available Friday.
Even Brooklyn-based independent publisher Melville House Books, producing an old-style pocketbook-sized mass-market paper, has cracked the top 100, climbing as high as No. 72.
“It’s the most anticipated book I’ve ever seen,” said publisher Dennis Johnson. He said he plans for 50,000 copies of his no-frills, “just the report” version for $9.99.
But it’s going for $7.40 on Amazon.