A Printer's View of the Newsstand Chaos

In a newsletter to clients, Quebecor reveals just how bad things have become.

By Bill Mickey
Wednesday, February 18, 2009

In a recent client newsletter, Quebecor reveals in painful, exasperated detail, just how badly the distribution system has been chewed up in the wake of the wholesaler implosion. It's an eye-opening view into the distribution world.

It seems that the supply chain was achieving a comparative sense of normalcy until Source Interlink's court-ordered injunction came through, which turned the system on its head once again. "Just when it appeared the turmoil was clearing up after the magazine national distributors had reassigned almost all of the Anderson News and Source Interlink wholesaler copies to new wholesalers, a NY judge issued a court order prohibiting publishers and national distributors from denying shipments to Source Interlink's wholesale magazine distribution business," reads the newsletter.

Once the court order came through, says Quebecor, the copies had to be re-consigned—again—resulting in a deluge of shipping requests and changes that created havoc with Quebecor's already delicate distribution plans. "Clear direction from some publishers and national distributors became further blurred when instructions to hold in the morning were then reversed in the afternoon. This caused QW plants and QWL CF locations to start and stop destination re-flagging of pallets, load planning, truck rerouting and stopping of equipment in route on the same day."

The court order, says Quebecor, created a "mixed bag" of instructions from publisher clients and national distributors, often at odds with each other, moving the printer to urge its clients to stay in close touch with their national distributors. "The unbundling and segregation of hold versus no-hold titles based on individual publisher and national distributor notice created considerable weekly pool rework and delays," says the letter.

And according to Quebecor, Anderson's recent operational shutdown was done without formal notice, and some national distributors have yet to find wholesaler suppliers for the Anderson allotments. Those titles are still on hold at the Quebecor locations "pending receipt of national distributor disposition notice."

Indeed, as trucks arrived at 11 Anderson-owned Prologix East locations between February 6 and February 9, they found the wholesaler facilities closed. Trucks had to be re-routed back to QW plants. The News Group, which co-owns Prologix with Anderson, re-opened the Prologix East facilities on February 11.

In an effort to control the situation, Quebecor is now requiring—even while it says it will continue to act on notices of change from publishers and national distributors—notices be received one week prior to the required date of change. "It has become clear that day to day release changes cannot be accommodated without sacrificing control of the distribution process," says Quebecor.

Anderson News Suspends 'Normal Business Activity'