Comments on: Reader’s Digest in peril in US http://magforum.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/readers-digest-in-peril-in-us/ Just another WordPress.com weblog Fri, 12 Oct 2012 04:08:36 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: magforum http://magforum.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/readers-digest-in-peril-in-us/#comment-5780 Thu, 20 Aug 2009 20:52:53 +0000 http://magforum.wordpress.com/?p=572#comment-5780 Reader’s Digest chief Mary Berner summed the problem up as “a balance sheet issue and not an operational issue” in the Financial Times*. That’s undoubtedly true with buy-out investors led by Ripplewood Holdings set to lose $600m.

However, Reader’s Digest has a long-term problem of falling sales as its ‘baby-boom’ readership dies off. In 1999, then chief executive Thomas Ryder said the group’s strategy was to focus on those over-50s readers. They’re now all 10 years older and I doubt that today’s 50-year-olds are replacing them.

As for the concept of summarising other publications, that’s a lot older than RD, going back to Victorian titles such as Tit-Bits and Answers (and Answers was the inspiration for the Wolrd-Wide Web!).

*www.ft.com/cms/s/0/91aad306-8b8d-11de-9f50-00144feabdc0.html

]]> By: strangerinbluesuedeshoes http://magforum.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/readers-digest-in-peril-in-us/#comment-5778 Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:39:36 +0000 http://magforum.wordpress.com/?p=572#comment-5778 Is it the magazine itself or the company that’s running it? Reader’s Digest is an old concept, but The Week uses the same basic principles. From what I have read about the PE operation that bought out RD I’d rather be in the tender hands of Felix Dennis. Perhaps there should be a new question, along the lines of What Would Google Do – what would Dennis do? Probably close it.

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