Time Inc. holds back popular titles in retaliation for wholesale surcharge demand

It's one thing to ask, another to get, particularly when it comes to as big and important a U.S. magazine publisher as Time Inc. Recent announcements from two big, U.S. magazine wholesalers were that they were going to tack on 7 cents to every copy they sold on newsstands. Mediaweek has reported that Time Inc. struck back saying it was not going to provide Source Interlink, one of the wholesalers

The contentious struggle to impose scan-based trading

It's sometimes entertaining to see the big guys duke it out, but not when the implications are so major for magazine publishers large and small, in the U.S. and in Canada. I'm referring to the nasty fight between Time Warner, publishers of such heavyweight newsstand titles as Time and Fortune, and Anderson News, the largest U.S. single copy distributor. A story in MediaDaily News suggests that

Quote, unquote: magazine wholesalers are committing suicide

What type of logic is this that bites the hand that feeds you? It does not take a researcher or a Ph.D. (although I claim to be one and do have a Ph.D.) to see the flow in the wholesalers logic. They are digging their own grave and they are digging it deep. When you hear people say that the wholesalers are in trouble, check and see if the trouble is from their own making. Wholesalers are not

Wholesalers cutting draws for low-priced newsstand titles

Wholesalers in Canada and the U.S. are cutting back draws for the proliferating number of low-priced magazines, according to a story in MediaWeek. The goal is to increase sell-through and therefore profitability on the titles, which tend to be found at grocery store checkouts and are priced at less than US$2.50. The News Group and Source Interlink Cos. have made significant cuts since May 1,