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Meredith Corp.’s president-COO Stephen M. Lacy said at the UBS Global Media Conference that the circulation of Family Circle, Parents, and Child magazines did not meet the rate base levels that they had promised advertisers, AdAge reports. Meredith, which bought the three publications from the American division of Germany’s Gruner & Jahr this summer, said that any liability based on pre-existing circulation problems would not become problems for Meredith but are rather the responsibility of Gruner & Jahr.
However, for advertisers looking for makegoods, that’s an unacceptable stance: when the publications were purchased from Gruner & Jahr USA, that division closed shop, leaving advertisers to deal with the overseas company. One media buyer, George Janson, managing partner-director of print for Mediaedge:cia, said that if Meredith wants to do business with him, the company will “make it their business to collect that money from G&J.”
A Meredith spokesperson said the company does plan to help advertisers through the process.
The fact that the Gruner & Jahr titles missed their rate bases should come as no big surprise, as the company has come under fire in recent years for just that reason.
In January, ABC reclassified as nonpaid 165,000 subscriptions for five out of six G+J USA Publishing’s titles. G+J said at the time it expected to incur $10 million in advertiser makegoods and refunds.
Meredith has reduced the rate bases for Family Circle and Child since purchasing the titles.
Chairman-CEO of Meredith, William T. Kerr, said that the company has successfully been integrated the new magazines, “and are converting them to our direct-to-consumer publishing model.” The integration means that the databases from G&J have been merged with Meredith’s lists, resulting in a database of 85 million names - leading the industry, according to the company.
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Glamour magazine is running its photo of Britney Spears not only on the cover of the U.S. edition, but on the covers in seven other countries, as well.
Britney will grace Russia, Sweden and Greece’s editions of Glamour, among others.…
Titan Worldwide has signed a five-year deal with the Delaware River Port Authority to manage out-of-home advertising for the Port Authority Transit corp.
The contract covers advertising on PATCO’s rail service and stations between Southern New Jersey and Philadelphia, writes Mediaweek.…
Publicis has acquired full-service agency W&K Communications, continuing its Asia expansion that began several years ago.
W&K will be pulled under the umbrella of Publicis’s Burnett agency network, and will be renamed Leo Burnett Beijing Advertising, writes Adweek.
Other recent Publicis…
With only four weeks separating Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, Cyber Monday One (December 1) and Cyber Monday Two (December 
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Top American non-luxury auto brands received higher ratings and less negative comments from online consumers than competing Japanese brands, according to an analysis of consumer opinions collected from automotive review websites by Biz360, MarketingCharts reports.
The research, which aggregated a year’s…
