The latest numbers on celebrity glossy OK! magazine appear to leave little doubt that it qualifies as the most expensive magazine launch in the history of American publishing — with total losses in the first four-plus years now totaling a staggering $175.7 million.
With 223 issues under its belt from its August 2005 debut through 2009, that comes out to a jaw-dropping $787,000 per issue.
While the latest numbers from Company’s House, the London clearing house where British corporations are required to file annual reports, claim the magazine lost only $787,757 last year, a rather expensive subscription marketing operation appears to have been moved off the books into a separate American corporation.
The financial results are through the calendar year ended Dec. 31, 2009.
The parent company, Northern & Shell, headed by Richard Desmond, also filed revised numbers for 2008 that piled substantial “administrative costs” onto the yearly report.
Initially, it said the North American operation has lost about $20.8 million. But in its revised statement for 2008, it said it had administrative expenses of $68.5 million, which helped push the US losses for 2008 alone to $71.8 million.
[All calculations are based on the exchange rate of one British pound equal to $1.4651, the current exchange rate.]
Paul Ashford, group editorial director of Northern & Shell, doesn’t consider the $175 million as a loss, he considers it “invested” cash.
In an e-mailed statement, Ashford wrote: “To clarify, we haven’t ‘lost’ $175 million, as you stated, but are proud to have invested $175 million in the magazine over time. This is certainly a suitable amount for a company like ours, with not only the means to do so, but a contin ued belief in its US product that is now the eighth-best selling magazine [on news stands] in the US.”
To be sure, OK!’s 2010 ad pages, through its May 31 issue, are up 26.9 percent, according to Media Industry Newsletter.
Legendary and longtime Architectural Digest Editor in Chief Paige Rense, who once famously quipped that she wouldn’t leave the publishing giant until Chairman S.I. Newhouse, Jr., left the company, is stepping down.
Presumably, her boss, Newhouse, is sticking around a little longer.
Rumors had been swirling last summer that she would be gone by the end of 2009, but she managed to outlast some of her critics.
Unlike a year ago, when she got on the phone to squelch the ru mors, this time a Condé Nast spokes woman said Rense was traveling and could not be reached for comment.
She appar ently met with Newhouse this week to discuss the move. One insider said the biggest surprise was “that they don’t have anyone lined up yet” to replace her.
Architectural Digest has been reeling on the ad front, plunging 49.8 percent last year — among the hardest hit of the upscale magazines in the Newhouse empire.
Ad pages dropped 2 percent this year through the June issue, according to MIN.
At various times, Stephen Drucker, who recently moved from House Beautiful to Town & Country, at Hearst, and Deborah Needleman, the one-time editor-in-chief of the popular but shuttered Domino, have been mentioned as possible successors.
A Condé spokeswoman said, “No replacement is ready yet.” She said a search is being done in collaboration with Editorial Director Tom Wallace.
Rense, 81 years old, started editing the magazine in 1975 and survived the takeover of its owner Knapp Communications by Condé Nast in 1993.
Nielsen Holdings, the Netherlands-based media company that includes the TV ad-tracking service and other data services, plans to raise up to $1.75 billion by making an initial public offering that it will use to pare down some of its $8.6 billion in debt.
The company has been rapidly divesting its business publishing operations.
In one of its latest transactions — the sale of Billboard, the Hollywood Reporter and the Adweek Group to e5 Global Media in December, for $70 million — the company said it rang up a net loss of $14 million before taxes.
The sale to e5 apparently made up the bulk of its $84 million in publishing divestments last year.
The firm had revenue of $4.9 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31 and claimed earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of about $1.4 billion.
Standard & Poor’s gave its debt a “B” rating with positive implications, but disallowed some of the “add backs” and estimated the company’s real EBITDA as closer to $1.2 billion.
Among the highlights, paidCon tent.org crunched the numbers and found that David Calhoun, the CEO, is collecting on a $10.6-million signing bonus through January 2012. He was hired after the private- equity firms took over four years ago.
Calhoun is also compen sated for the loss of stock- option payments from his previous gig to the tune of an additional $18.8 million. PaidContent also said Calhoun received a lump-sum deferred compensation benefit of $14.5 million plus annual interest. keith.kelly@nypost.com