Pecker won’t be all that’s cut
INSIDERS are bracing for another round of cuts at the tabloid empire formerly known as American Media, which abruptly changed its name last Friday after bouncing longtime CEO David Pecker and announcing it would be merging with retail distribution company Accelerate 360.
“We will be communicating more details about this exciting transition in the weeks to come,” CEO David Parry told staffers last week in announcing that the publisher of Radar Online, OK! and In Touch, would be renamed A360 Media.
But insiders say they are expecting nothing but bad news to come in the magazine division. “Without question there will be redundancies,” a source said.
Some 20 people have already been laid off in the weeks leading up to the merger at the Boca Raton, Fla., offices that previously served as the company’s headquarters, another insider told Media Ink. A spokesperson for the magazines declined to comment.
The publishing company in late March cut about a quarter of its staff and instituted 23 percent pay cuts for the survivors.
“Fat hope of that being restored now, of course,” grumbled one insider.
In its press release announcing that merger Friday, only four of the company’s 14 titles — Us Weekly, Life & Style, OK! and Men’s Journal — were mentioned. Absent from the release was the company’s infamous National Enquirer and two smaller supermarket tabloids, Globe and National Examiner, even though they are included in the sale to Accelerate 360.
One insider said he found the omission strange given how well the supermarket tabloids have been doing during the pandemic compared to the mags that were mentioned. “The glossies sales are really bad because airports, newsstands, etc,. are not getting traffic while the tabs, because they are sold mainly in supermarkets — which are doing well during COVID — are doing OK.”
One reason may be that the Enquirer and two other smaller tabloids were promised to Hudson News wholesaler James Cohen for $100 million in April 2019, but the deal was never consummated. It’s unclear whether it ever will be.
In response to queries from Media Ink, Cohen texted that he was “on a boat” with poor wireless reception.
A spokesman for Chatham Asset Management, which owns 80 percent of the former American Media and a similar share of the distribution company, declined to comment.
Fans of Oprah Winfrey’s O, the Oprah Magazine will still be able to snag physical copies next year — at a cost.
After announcing that the last monthly print edition will be published in December, Oprah recently clarified that the magazine isn’t going away, it’s just getting smaller.
“There’s been a lot of chatter and a lot of speculation about O, The Magazine ending,” Oprah said in a video to her fans on Instagram last week.
“I want you to know it’s not ending. It’s evolving. Because after 20 years of covers, I think it’s time. And I also think it’s a good thing. None of us were meant to stay the same. We evolve with the times.”
She now plans to publish “at least four special print editions,” instead of monthly issues, she said.
But a newsstand-only title typically means a higher cover price because it is a circulation-supported issue rather than an advertising-supported venture. And while Hearst, Oprah’s publishing partner, is still finalizing its plans, sources tell Media Ink that the quarterly issues will likely be sold only on newsstands for a cover price of between $10 and $12 — up from its current $4.99 an issue. O’s current paid subscribers — which numbered 1.8 million as of June 30, according to the Alliance for Audited Media — are expected to be offered other titles in the Hearst stable to make up for the loss of O, such as Elle, Harper’s Bazaar and Good Housekeeping. O magazine sold 189,807 newsstand copies in the first half of the year and derived about 8.7 percent of its circulation from 197,916 digital subscribers. Digital is now expected to play a bigger role since most of the uplifting and wellness content it built up in its 20-year run is of the evergreen variety, as valid today as when it was first published. Oprah is not the only celebrity to go this route. Meredith last year cut its Rachael Ray Every Day magazine to a quarterly newsstand title starting in December 2019 with a $9.99 cover price. Dr. Mehmet Oz saw his magazine joint venture with Hearst, Dr. Oz the Good Life, cut back to a quarterly newsstand title in 2017.