The Press: End of a Race

Biggest year-end news in magazine publishing is that Curtis Publishing Co.’s Ladies’ Home Journal in February will raise its price from 10¢ to 15¢ a copy; from $1 to $1.50 a year, thereby dropping out of any profitless race among the 10¢ women’s magazines for more & more circulation.

Official reason: rising costs. Another cogent reason: even after next year’s ad rate increase ($8,500 to $9,200 a black & white page) the Journal will get less per page for its advertising than it got in 1927, though its circulation has meantime climbed from 2,500,000 to 4,100,000.

This fall some advertisers, finding it hard to tell which recent circulation increases have reflected higher selling pressure rather than increased popular demand, have been dogging publishers somewhat indiscriminately to increase prices before increasing advertising rates. In the Journal’s case most of the circulation climb has come voluntarily from a 134% increase in newsstand sales, from 568,396 in 1936 to 1,332,165 last spring; and the Journal put through its $700 advertising increase before it decided to raise its price and take a chance on what the increase would do to its sales.