Friday, June 14, 2013

Bauer Sees Value in Newsstands

Bauer Publishing, the owner of magazines including In Touch and Woman's World, plans to introduce Closer, a weekly celebrity magazine aimed at women in their mid-30s to late 40s, the company said. 
The rollout, reported Friday in The New York Post, is a surprising move amid an ongoing, years-long slump in newsstand sales. Magazines' single-copy sales in the second half of last year fell 8% from the second half a year earlier,  according to the Alliance for Audited Media, with double-digit declines at In Touch, sibling Life & Style, Time Inc.'s People and Wenner Media's Us Weekly.
But Bauer, which has always emphasized newsstands over the subscription business that comprises the focus at most U.S. publishers, remains committed to newsstands.