NUMBERS RACE DROPOUT CURTIS PLANS AUGUST START FOR CUTS IN POST CIRCULATION, FORMAT CHANGES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000300060011-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 31, 2004
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: May 17, 1968
• Content Type: NSPR

Y1" .SST
Approved For Release 2004/09/28: CIA-Qr1314R00
1 ? MAY 196b
urtis P.laus,August Start for Cuts
In'ost Circulat,on, Format Changes
oUL-____??_ , _ > efficiency of their spending on TV in terms of
THEW YQFKt The SaturdayEvening Post,
to dering flagship of the Curtis Publishing Co.
'njost of its subscribers and steer ae
t new
;ginning with the Aug. 10 issue the
v r le magazine will begin paring its circu.
latl it to 3 million from the current 6.8 million
and ,tart evolving a more sophisticated edito-
ria.l,lpackage. Readers are to get breezier pic-
tur layouts, easfer-to"read 'type more subtle
Qpns and articles in greater depth.
artm S. Ackerman who stepped in as Cur-
ti resident last month, is expected to win-
p b* :l for his plans for the Post from directors
a Special meeting in Philadelphia today. The
in -ig Mr. Ackerman's previously reported
they sponsor usually pay more attention to a,
magazine's total audience than its base circu-
lation, and the Post has suffered in the com-
parison with Life and Look.
Newsstand Sales of 400,000
Of the Post's 6.8 million circulation, news.
stand sales account for 400,000 and subscrip-
tiens the remaining 6.4 million. Mr. Ackerman
said the newsstand price will remain 35 cents
and distribution to newsstands won't be cur-
tailed. However, the subscription list will be
cut more than 50%+
Mr. Ackerman conceded he hasn't been able
to sell the undesired Post subscription list to
other publishers, or even find one willing to as-
sume the liability of fulfilling the unexpired
Post subscriptions by substituting his own
magazine.
The subscription list will be pruned by send-
ing fewer subscription solicitation letters to
i nonsubscribers, fewer renewal notices to per-
sons "whose subscriptions are expiring, and
r 3 i 1= 'o `eratin 'Tosses of
y e sh rt-sleeved'7itr. ckerman swung
da
his feet up onto the desk of his small, una-
dorned office on the editorial floor of the Satur-
day Evening Post and said: "The Post can't
make it in its present format; It can't compete
with television, We're getting out of the num-
bers race."
Goal: To Compete With TV
The "numbers race" was the effort of the
Post and most other mass magazines in the
1950s to__ add _. circulation., _ rapidly, usually
'through costly promotions, cut-rate subscrip-
tions' and other special inducements. The goal
-to compete with television's huge audiences
-.proved unobtainable for the Post and it
slackened its efforts.
'cut-off notices to many current- subscribers.'
Subscribers to be cut off will have the option of
a refund or a subscription to another Curtis
magazine. In addition to the biweekly Post, the
company publishes four monthlies, the Ladies'
.Home Journal, American Home, Holiday and
Jack & Jill.
The Post's circulation will start going down
this summer and won't reach the 3 million
level until the end of the year, Mr. Ackerman
said. In the interim, advertisers. will benefit
from more circulation than the 3 million on
which.. advertising rates will be based.
Ad rates will drop sharply, while cost per
thousand circulation will remain $4.26 for a
full-page ad in black and white and $6.39 in
four colors.
Reaction, front.. advertisers and ad_.agencies
a .-b. en "e p l ent," the executive said. He,
noted that the higher-income, metropolitan and
suburban subscribers the Post will keep are
better prospects for most advertised products
than the less . affluent small-town subscribers
who will be dropped in droves.
Can Break Even With 1,000 Ad Pages
After adding 2.3 million circulation in the
1950s, the Post has put on only another 500,000
since 1960. But maintaining circulation on such
a high plateau has been costly, with millions
spent each year just to find new subscribers to
replace those not renewing expired subscrip-
tions,
The Post lost the'numbers race long ago not
only to TV, but also to close competitors Life
and Look, With ore pictures and fewer words
than the Post, thes Tea azmes"`en greater
pass-along ' readership. The av_ erage copy of
Life is rgad by 4.7 adults, ILoo1 'by 4.1 and the
post by only 3.5, according to the widely ac-
opted 196$ magazine audience study of W. It.
-Under the new plan, he said, the Post can
break even with $13 million in net ad revenue a {
year, and 1,000 ad pages or less. Last year the
Post ran 1,052 ad pages and grossed $41.3 mil-
lion before discounts and ad-agency commis-
sions. Net ad revenue wasn't disclosed.
weekly can find a safe niche- as a "reading
magazine in com e.tition' with the newsma a-
lnes: Three million circulation wi u the
I
Post f8fli in tie' magazinehlerarcliy, behind
'total audiences, AcqIgrdit g to the immoils ' million). The Post f s currently ninth be~ltind
stud 32 9 million adults read Life 31 8 n,iion Look (7.7 million) -and L i e ( 7 3 mil on), Tout
STAT
res cl ,Look, and only WdrP6r dl0 se aftaI*Y 91 $ - ~ # t 0060011-5
 c u y s oughe o mo amoun so circu
latioal. Farm, ~ourna "To e more a
96b,600 nonfarmsn scribers in acing
its circulation toy ion on. nonfarm
readers iion't appeal r Mu a`cvefisers `fi_the'
magazine said. Nonfarm subscribers were a -
j fered a refund or a? su s _r ration to"on`e of `i`l
other magazines, among them the Saturday
e
M t t k th
P
t
i
~13fi p
300060011-5
in e31_rYeritie._ws.-]ea5 _th34% last year, r
loss of. $4.8 million.
Some authorities, trace the start of the
Post's decline to the early 1930s when it op-
posed Franklin D. Roosevelt's Administration
and appeared to lose touch with the mood of
the American people. More Important, out-
, os oo ano er ma azur
os
Even
ng
moded,headlixie type, antiquated la outs and
In 1963 Macfadden-Bartell Corp. boughti often stuffy stories during this era contrasted
True Confessions and Motion Picture maga? unfavorably with the lively makeup an' con-
zines and decided it could make more money tenn.of the new ];.ife magazine founded in 1936.
selling them exclusively on newsstands. So it The Post faced competition from other gen-
elinated all subscriptions, more' than 500,000: eral-interest weeklies, notably Collier's and
fdr each magazine. Subscribers got a refund orr: Liberty, before Life entered the field. iBut it
a subscription to True Story or Photoplay, was Life that cut. deepest. into the Post's vital
other Macfadden-Bartell monthlies. 1d. revenue. Look; first published inM 1937
tsta`fed more s1ow1Y' thanLife, but came on
'The Saturday Evening Post always has been d
the mainstay of the Curtis Publishing empire ,fast in the -1950s and passed the Post in ad
It contriputed most of the company s $21.5 In ~pa$es As genera- In 1962.
l-interest ma
lion peak profit in 1929 and grabbed 28% of all ; magazines with large
advertising revenue in consumer magazines. In ,circulations, all three were more vulnerable
the ecilal?mt rest periodicals to competition
roleXg s ~endancy hastened the
eild'Qf syI yVe `_11Rk~~1 publications as Col-
lie', Worugn ~S IOip @ cq papion and the
Aillertcall
As The P.pst's ciicu aioz~ and costs rose, it
boosted its ad rates beyond the budget of many
advertisers, who drifted, away to publications
Iwith lower rates-.
Ad Pages Totaled 4,425 In 1950
The Postt, whose. advertising hit a peak of
5,576 pages in 1929, carried a still-hefty 4,425
pages in 1950. Then the skid began. Ad linage
fell for 14 successive years, totaling only 1,407
r pages in 1964.
The drop would have been even steeper if
old subscribers and advertisers, while others
who alwa~ s had looked on the magazine as un -
Fsophisticatedw~ere sloow o~_change their opin-
lion.
In xere,. ,-
48 tiie ost'sec1 toriafiappeal to-
E~Yar s. "class' z auciie}ce~Ivlr Ac#lerntan hgpes
to avoid a repeat of the 1961 fiasco. He's es-
chewing all talk about a "new Post" and,
stressing that change will be evolutionary.
'duced succeeded in s,eping, some large 111. ad ertfaers v ai d i~ni uggpg the to, buy more
pates, but cut the profit-per?page to the vanish-
ing point.
Curtis. started losing money in 1961, and de-
cided something had to be done. Its solution
was to abxu tIy redesign the Post to make it
faster pa,Ge tredictable and controve rsial.
The innovQtions s rtled, jwd displeased many
After the 1961 revolution scared off many
advertisers, a rash of libel suits tarnished..-the
niagacine's Image. The most widely publicized
suit stemmed from a' 1963 article charging
Wally Butts, former University of Georgia foot-
ball coach, with conspiring with Paul (Bear)
Bryant, coach at the University of Alabama, to
rig the 1962 Alabama-Georgia game. Both men
The Post changed editors four times be
tween late 1961 and late .964. Since, then, under
Editor William A. Emerson ,Jr-,, the magazine
has kept out of serious libel trouble, but'it
hasn't developed, a, co "iv edit r is forriilrla
Qr.-e,. strong slid iinmist ble personality of its
-profiles fiction, essays and liberal editorials.
'ograp7ifc routs often have ~l~eenla,eklus
,,
the .profound, from the pedestrian to the bril.
liant, even though payment to writers has been
consistently high-from $2,000 to $5 OQ0 for an
ordinary-length article and as much as $20,000
for a special effort.
But the Post hasn't had the resources to bid
seriously against Life and Look for the block-
busters, such as William Manchester's The
Death of a President and Svetlana Stalin Alli-
.luyeva's Twenty Letters to a Friend, that bring
a magazine excitement and prestige.
To give advertisers a preview of the more
sophisticated turn the Post will take, Mr. Ack-
erman plans to print 10,000 copies of alterna-
tives to the June 15 and June 29 issues. The al-
ternative issues will be distributed to Madison
Avenue while subscribers and newsstand buy-
ers receive the regular issues. In the June 29,
issue, a "folksy" story about Lady Bird John-
son's tour through Texas will be replaced in
the alternative issue by a spread on the new
Broadway hit musical Hair.
Metropolitan-Area Audience
Hair presumably will have more appeal to
the magazine's remaining metroplitan-area
audience. Currently, the Post has 37.4% of its
readers in the nation's 25 largest metropolitan
areas, significantly less than Look's 43.7% and
Life's 50%. Increasing the Post's percentage Is
aimed at luring advertisers who concentrate
their marketing efforts In the big cities and
suburbs.
Look has attracted 100 metropolitan-orient-
ed marketers with Its three-month-old Top-Spot
Plan. The plan enables an advertiser to buy
space in copies of Look going to one million
residents of 1,068 high-income areas, mostly in
suburbs of big cities.
The Post will have to show strong gains in
the second half if it is to match last year's 1,052
ad pages. Ad pages In January-May issues
dropped 12.8% from a year ,earlier, and June
linage will be down about 18%.
Many advertisers have curtailed their
spending because of the slowdown in the econ-
omy and uncertainties over the Vietnam war,
taxes an,d other Issues,. Some have cut TV
spending less because of a conviction that TV
is a more eff4pient medium for reaching a dual
audience of 'men and women. Dual-audience
magazines like the Post-also- are suffering In-
creasing competition from women's maga-
zines, , w,hich_ are siphoning off ads for soap,
drugs, cosmetics, fod and ther products pur-
Approved For Release 2004/09 28 : I -R[P$ = -