Media

Desmond Dumping Magazine Lineup

Chuck Ansbacher | Thursday 17 March, 2011 15:39

In a sound rebuke of printed gossip, media mogul and Northern & Shell founder Richard Desmond has put his entire roster of magazines up for sale. That includes all 23 editions of the declining yet profitable OK!, which is the largest weekly magazine in the world.

A confidential Barclays Capital presentation details the proposed sale of the UK and all international editions of OK!, as well as UK publications Star and New! magazine.

It reveals that OK! Magazine in the UK made a profit of around £20m last year.
In the latest set of six-monthly magazine circulation figures from ABC, OK! magazine’s circulation was down 23.4% year on year to 450,946 in a quiet period for big celebrity stories.

Once thought to be the golden cow of print, gossip has been in rapid decline in recent years. Although the internet has eaten into a chunk of its readership as with all other print, there just hasn’t been as much crazy shit happening in the celebrity world as there used to be. Actual catastrophe has eclipsed OH NO THEY DIDN’T catastrophe, and those in the limelight also seem to have maybe learned from the mistakes of their predecessors?

This may be wishful thinking, but a circulation drop of 23.4% can’t be blamed solely on the internet. There seems to be less crazy in the air these days… but that’s probably just the quiet before they storm.

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