Only People among celebrity magazines will have the first baby pictures of the royal Prince of Cambridge and proud parents Prince William and Kate Middleton on its cover this week.
People Managing Editor Larry Hackett gambled that his man on the street in London, Simon Perry, was correct in that the royal baby would be presented to the public on Tuesday — allowing him to hold up publication just long enough to include the photo on the cover.
Rival celebrity weeklies, including Us Weekly, Star, In Touch and Life & Style, will acknowledge the baby’s birth with small “chips” of the happy couple on the cover, but no photo of the newborn prince.
“The timing was perfect,” said Hackett, who held up the magazine’s print run by a couple of hours to get the photos of daddy William, mom Kate and their 8 lb., 6 oz. bundle of joy on the cover.
Inside are 19 pages of royal baby coverage.
Now the question is: How many copies will the issue sell on newsstands?
When William was born to Princess Diana and Prince Charles in 1982 and got cover treatment, People sold 2.4 million copies.
One rival editor reluctantly congratulated People, saying: “It will be a big seller for them.”
Hackett said he could not predict how it will sell, but noted the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate in April 2011 sold about 2 million copies.
“Anything in that general vicinity, I’d be very happy with,” he said.
People was one of only two US publications to be included in the royal pool camped outside St. Mary’s Hospital. The other, Us Weekly, opted not to go head-to-head with People.
The cover for Us will be Bachelorette Desiree Hartsock.
Star is going with another Kim Kardashian cover.
Bauer Publications’ In Touch is mentioning the baby on its cover, but, sources say, will feature Khloe Kardshian.
Life & Style is going with a photo of Cory Monteith, the “Glee” star who recently was found dead in Toronto, and co-star Lea Michele, sources tell Media Ink.
Ripping the past
The Delaney Report was the first to advance the name Joe Ripp as a possible candidate for the Time Inc. CEO job.
Ripp’s candidacy initially was not given much of a chance by some, including Time insiders because of his role in the AOL revenue-inflating scandal that prompted the SEC to charge eight former AOL officers in 2008.
Ripp was a former CFO of Time Warner when he was dispatched to AOL after the merger of the two companies.
Ripp settled the civil charges shortly thereafter and agreed to pay a fine of $150,000.
Under terms of the settlement, as was typical at the time, he neither admitted nor denied any wrongdoing.
Asked about the past scandal yesterday, Ripp responded via email, “I am very happy that chapter is behind me.”
Rodale’s search
Maria Rodale, the third-generation family member to run Rodale Inc., told staffers she is looking to step back from day-to-day operations and bring in two new executives — a president and chief operating officer.
“I’m excited to let you all know that we have begun a search to fill two important roles — a president and chief operating officer — each of whom will report to me,” she said in a memo released to staffers on Friday.
The move came as a surprise to some, who wondered why she did not quietly search for the executives and then announce their appointments once they were found.
It also made it appear that she was stepping back from the duties normally associated with a CEO.
Suspect cover sells
Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone endured a firestorm of bad publicity last week for putting a picture of accused Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev appears on the Aug. 1 cover of Rolling Stone.
All the negative publicity did not hurt — even though some retailers, including CVS and Walgreens, said they would not allow that issue of the magazine to be sold in their stores.
One circulation source said the sales for the issue through the first weekend were running about 20 percent above its normal rate.
Even accounting for the retailers who rejected the issue, the sales elsewhere appear to be more than offsetting the decline from the stores that banned the issue.
“It looks like the sales are up about 20 percent,” said the source. Normally, the RS sells only about 81,000 copies of its 1.4 million circulation on newsstands anyway, so that was never crucial to the magazine’s success.
The estimated sell-through, even with the limited ban, looks like it will reach at least 90,000 copies on newsstands, said the source, and it could end up higher.
A Rolling Stone spokeswoman declined comment.