Line dancing: Embattled G+J head coach Dan Brewster today announced the half-time entertainment for this year’s Gruner + Jahr Circulation Cooking Bowl will be a Texas two-step dancing troupe called “Greg Zorithian & The Interim Audits.”
From the G+J press release:
Gruner + Jahr USA announced today that the Company has hired Gregory Zorthian, an independent consultant, to review circulation strategies and methodology for G+J.
“We believe this is an important step to ensure that we adapt best practices in all areas of subscription and newsstand sales, and that we adhere to the highest standards for tracking and reporting circulation,” states Daniel B. Brewster Jr., President and CEO of G+J USA. “Furthermore, as the subscription and newsstand environment continues to change, it is equally important for us to develop new methodologies for identifying qualified subscribers and newsstand buyers,” he adds.
Additionally, as provided in the ABC rules, G+J has exercised its option to have interim audits of the first six months of 2003 completed. Michael J. Lavery, President and Managing Director of the Audit Bureau of Circulations, has agreed to complete these audits as quickly as possible.
Apparently Coach Brewster wants to review whether or not the practice of inflating circulation numbers is an appropriate strategy and methodology.
Old enough to know better: If you’re keeping score, it’s Judd - .175, McNair - .18. Bottomline: stay off Nashville streets late at night. Also, I haven’t noticed it before, but when she’s drunk, Wynonna sneers just like Rosie. P.S., the phrase, “Old enough to know better,” is the title of a cut off her Revelations album. (I’m a huge Wynonna fan and her songs, all purchased and legal, take up lots of space on my iPod. I wish she’d just sing, however, and cut out all that Barbara Strestand orchestration.) Anyway, another cut off of the Revelations CD is a cover of “Free Bird” - weird, huh? While I’m at it, one of the drawbacks of the coolest invention of the year, the iTunes Store, is the lack of Wynonna albums. Glad I got all that off my chest. Now, I can drive to a Nashville bar and drink 12 beers on the way home.
rexblog: the movie: If you’ve ever thought this weblog should be adapted into a screenplay, well, you’re wrong. (via Dave Barry.)
Advertorials 101: You can read this great primer on advertorials in the current issue of Folio:, but ignore the headline, “The Downside of the Advertorial Boom.” It must have something to do with the photograph in the print edition of the magazine (I haven’t seen mine yet) because the article focuses more on the “upside” than the down. (rexblog contextual promotion: A publisher can outsource production of an advertorial and minimize the “downsides.” )
Up in smoke: The St. Louis Business Journal is reporting that several major tobacco companies will no longer advertise in school editions of Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report, as a result of a request by several state Attorneys General. I’m just guessing, but I think the tobacco companies will use their savings to purchase these toys to distribute to the kids who will no longer be seeing those magazine ads.
A rexblog special:
The G+J Circ-cooking Scandal
Is Dan done? Now that the Rosie trial has “ended,” the NY Post’s Keith Kelly wonders (in the form of a news article) about G+J USA’s CEO, Dan Brewster. In trying to decode the quotes and nuanced shadings of Kelly’s article, one would be led to compare Brewster’s prospects to that of, say, Steve Spurrier.
As I’ve pointed out (and here), the real “story” of the Rosie trial, at least for the magazine industry, is the revelation that G+J deliberated manipulated circulation numbers in the first half of 2002. According to Kelly, G+J seems to have scrambled the cover-your-ass squad on this front, in part by, “bringing in circulation expert Gregory Zorthian, a veteran of Hearst Magazines and Time Inc., to go over the circulation practices within the company.”
Here is my prediction. Mr. Zorthian will not like what he sees. Soon, Mr. Brewster will announce that he has accepted the job as head football coach at the University of Kentucky.
More coverage of the G+J circ-cooking “scandal”:
(Updated throughout the day)
MediaPost: Brewster to G+J Staff: We ‘Achieved Objectives’
MediaPost: Agency Execs: Rosie Circulation Disclosures Equivalent To A ‘Quiz Show’ Scandal
WSJ: Gruner + Jahr,
O’Donnell Finish
Out of the Money (sub. required)
G+J Press Release: Gruner + Jahr USA Retains Independent Auditor
