WHY THE CELEBRITY CATEGORY IS SOOO RESILIENT OR NOT?

David Pecker said that since Candace Trunzo had taken over as “editor in chief that the magazine was more successful today than when Bonnie has run it over the last four years…It runs on its own. You just need the right captain or admiral to steer it.” 

This is an incredibly strange statement coming from a publishing executive!  Don’t you think? 

How can a magazine run itself?  Mr. Pecker provided incredible insight with those words and demonstrated why the category is having one of its worst periods in years.

A magazine “can’t simply run on its own.”  In this highly competitive space, the only innovation I’ve seen recently is how each magazine is copying the other magazine week after week – from the internal features to the cover topics. 

Forget about innovation – copying is the name of the game.

And until that changes, expect numbers on the newsstand to continue to be flat or even lower than before.