There are signs that the Kardashians may be crashing and burning — at least as far as celebrity magazines are concerned.
The holiday season is typically a slow time of the year for celebrity weeklies, but this past week was worse than usual, with newsstand sales tumbling an estimated 18 percent across the category.
Four magazines in the crowded field — Us Weekly, In Touch, Life & Style and OK! — all featured one of the reality-TV star sisters and all mags were down to varying degrees.
Us Weekly ran with Khloe Kardashian and tanked mightily, with newsstand sales for the issue estimated to be only 450,000 to 500,000, among its worst-selling issues of 2011.
OK!, which has been circulation-challenged for years, delivered one of its biggest clunkers of the year. Its newsstand sales barely reached an estimated 200,000 for a cover that featured Kim Kardashian, the more famous sister who is blamed for much of the backlash against the sisters after her quickie divorce from basketball star Kris Humphries. The cover promised to reveal “What I didn’t tell Kris,” but the public didn’t care.
Life & Style, ordinarily a slower-selling title, did somewhere in the 330,000 to 360,000 bracket on the newsstand, which is actually flat to slightly down with its Kim “Revenge Romance” cover.
In Touch went with a cover on the third sister, Kourtney Kardashian, with the blurb “Pregnant and Alone.” That was actually one of the best of the bunch, with weekly newsstand sales estimated to be between 600,000 and 630,000 copies.
In Touch pulled ahead of Us Weekly’s 500,000 in single-copy sales for the Kim Kardashian cover, considered a very poor showing for a magazine that runs close to a million for a strong issue.
That put In Touch in second place, behind category leader People. The Time Inc. flagship, which insiders said spent in the high six figures for the Kim/Kris wedding day photos and reaped good sales at the time — stayed away from the sisters this week.
But it did not help. People’s cover featured E! host Giuliana Rancic’s battle with breast cancer and her double mastectomy news, but it drew only 900,000 to 1 million newsstand sales for a title that usually sells closer to 1.2 million copies at this time of year.
Star, which broke the news that Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher were divorcing, didn’t have the same luck this week with a report on Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s pending divorce. Even without a Kardashian weighing it down, sales were in the 440,000 to 460,000 range.
One bad week doesn’t automatically mean the Kardashian craze is over. As several sources pointed out, two of the non-Kardashian covers tanked as well.
“I’d say the dip is more because four magazines had Kardashian covers,” Dan Wakeford, the editor-in-chief of Life & Style, said.
Kim, the most-covered sister, has been trying to avoid the limelight because of the vicious public backlash against the Humphries wedding and quickie divorce.
Us Weekly sources point out that the previous week’s cover with Kourtney Kardashian sold above average. Still, the Kardashians cooling off is just one more unsettling thing for the industry to ponder as the year comes to a close.
Bye, Chi-town
While the handwriting has been on the wall for a while now, Playboy basically acknowledged yesterday that it’s pulling virtually all of its operations out of Chicago, which has been its corporate headquarters for 60 years.
A fresh round of rumors began in August when the editorial director, Jimmy Jellinek, relocated to Los Angeles, where founder and Editor-in-Chief Hugh Hefner has been since 1971. The Playboy mansion was established out west as well years ago.
However, when Hugh’s daughter, Christie Hefner, was CEO, Chicago seemed safe as the corporate headquarters, since she preferred the Second City to New York or Los Angeles.
Yesterday, the company admitted in a statement that it’s all over but the shouting: “As of May 2012, Playboy magazine’s editorial, art and photo departments will be based out of the company’s Los Angeles office. Some of the magazine’s Chicago employees have been asked to relocate, while others have been asked to stay on in Chicago to ensure a seamless transition. Open key positions will be hired out of Los Angeles.
“No final decisions have been made yet regarding the future of other departments currently based in Chicago.”