THE FUTURE OF MAGAZINES

Not very good news for USA magazines, with TV Guide leading the circulation crisis.

The impact of a major change in the way the Audit Bureau of Circulations tallies a magazine's circulation was revealed today, as the bureau released its data for the first half of 2006 this morning.

Those figures reveal for the first time the effect of removing public-place circulation -- titles found in doctors' offices and beauty parlors -- from the paid column and placing them under the new label "verified."

The advent of verified matters because publishers have traditionally pegged their ad rates to paid circulations -- which until now included many public-place copies.

Among the top 25 consumer titles by average paid circulation, most were down.

TV Guide had the biggest percentage drop, down 59.02% to 3.4 million, due to a deliberate reduction in its rate base earlier this year.

Hearst's O, The Oprah Magazine dropped nearly 11% to 2.3 million.

That follows a 9.3% decline in average paid circulation in the second half of last year, which the publisher said was intentionally engineered through high subscription pricing in an effort to get numbers down to the rate base of 2.2 million.

INNOVATION has been hired to present in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in November 14, 2007 at a FIPP (International Federation of Periodical Publications) Conference, a Global Report about THE FUTURE OF MAGAZINES AND THE MAGAZINES OF THE FUTURE.

Our UK Director, Juan Senor is interviewing on video for this report some of the leading editors and publishers around the world.