Reader’s Digest to Increase Publication Frequency

By Michael Rondon
Monday, September 17, 2012

Reader’s Digest will increase its publication frequency from 10 to 12 issues per year on all platforms starting in 2013, says ownership group The Reader’s Digest Association [RDA].

The announcement comes as a welcome positive for the magazine after it saw frequency cut from 12 to 10 issues and its rate base reduced from 8 million to 5.5 million as RDA emerged from Chapter 11 in early 2010.

President and CEO Robert E. Guth, who joined RDA last September, credits the issue increase to the digital inroads Reader’s Digest has made over the past several years.

“In the past, print economics have driven many of the decision made in the publishing industry,” he says in a release. “As digital becomes a driving force for our business, the economics are changing as well. … Our digital issues are garnering unprecedented demand.”

According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the digital version of the magazine had just over 1,600 subscribers as of mid-2010. Now, Guth says, Reader’s Digest is on pace to exceed 200,000 digital subscribers.

Positive signs have appeared elsewhere as well. Overall, Reader’s Digest claims a nearly 30 percent increase in print ad growth since 2010, and is the only magazine in its category to have increased its pages in 2012, bumping up 11 percent.

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