Business

BATTLE OF THE CELEB BABIES

IN the battle over which magazine will be the first to feature the newest additions to the Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt brood, the celebrity glossies are double-teaming the stars.

People, the most profitable magazine in the Time Inc. empire, has teamed up with overseas celebrity magazine Hello! to win the deal for the photos of the twin babies. People will get the North American rights to the photos.

The photo shoot took place last weekend with the proud parents and their son, Knox, and daughter Vivienne. Hello! gets all the other rights worldwide.

The price tag, which once was rumored to be as high as $20 million, is now believed to have settled in the $11 million to $15 million bracket – which is still a new world record for a celebrity baby photo.

The deal is also a bitter blow to the British billionaire Richard Desmond, owner of OK!, who was said to be personally negotiating the deal. Aside from losing to People in the states, he’ll now have to contend with his main rival in Britain, Hello!, running the photos next week as well.

FLAT MATT

So, just how did OK!’s summer of baby coups pan out? To the chagrin of its rivals, OK! reeled off three consecutive baby photos on their covers featuring the new offspring of Jamie Lynn Spears on July 21, Jessica Alba on July 24 and Matthew McConaughey on the Aug. 4 cover.

The early estimates suggest that the issues sold well above the average, but with the exception of Jamie Lynn Spears, probably did not offset the prices paid by the magazine to snag the stars’ babies.

Jamie Lynn Spears was the most successful, selling an estimated 750,000 copies on newsstands. That was part of a package deal whereby OK! was said to have paid $1 million to first break the news that she was pregnant, followed by the baby photo.

Another issue that goes on sale later this week will continue to milk the Spears saga with a cover touting the “Romantic Details of Upcoming Wedding.” Teen pregnancy is clearly the gift that keeps on giving for OK!

Alba is said to have snagged around $1.2 million for her baby photos, which had newsstand sales of around 600,000.

McConaughey is said to have landed $2 million to $3 million. That may have stung People, which didn’t stay in the game, but it turns out to have been a wise move, since early estimates put sales at only 550,000. Better than average, but not worth the price.

“People spent the first half of the year bidding on everything. Then with the start of the second quarter, they seemed to stop bidding. The question is were they saving up for Brad and Angelina photos, or did someone tell them that it wasn’t worth the expense?” one rival magazine executive said.

O-BOMB-A

While Barack Obama has been newsstand gold for some publications, People magazine isn’t one of them, as its Obama and family cover turned out to sell at slightly below its usual newsstand average.

People normally sells 1.45 million copies a week on newsstands. The latest estimates put the sales figure for last week’s Obama cover at 1.4 million.

It is believed to be one of the first covers featuring Obama that has not sold above normal. When Time had Obama on the cover in 2006 it was the second-best- selling cover of the year.

In the competitive set, Us Weekly’s June cover with Obama achieved a sale jump of over 10 percent above average, selling close to one million. Its average weekly sales figure for most of the year is below 900,000.

While Obama is viewed as having as much pulling power as a celebrity or a rock star, neither he nor his family were paid for their cover appearances – so the newsstand sales didn’t have to offset anything.

Said one People insider, “We’re happy at 1.4 million.”

LONG GOODBYE

The Daily News is retreating from Long Island, in what insiders are saying is the first in a new round of expected cuts to the beleaguered tabloid’s editorial staff.

The Mort Zuckerman-owned paper has decided to pull its last two remaining reporters from its bureau in Long Island and shutter the office there.

The retreat from Long Island coverage means that Bureau Chief Brian Harmon and reporter Richard Weir are both getting pink slips. Both had worked at the paper for more than seven years.

“The News has always had a schizophrenic relationship with Long Island, depending on who was in power,” said one source.

In its heyday decades ago, the paper had a dozen reporters in bureaus in Nassau and Suffolk counties, back when many Long Islanders still considered themselves transplants from Brooklyn and Queens and commuted to work in the big city.

Now, a majority of Long Island residents no longer commute.

Nevertheless, totally closing the bureau is still considered a major concession.

Earlier this year, Zuckerman had vied against The Post’s owner News Corp. to buy Newsday from Sam Zell‘s Tribune Co., but was outbid by Cablevision, which earlier this week finalized its purchase of the Long Island paper for $650 million.

One insider said the cuts “were not buyouts, they were mandatory layoffs.”

There was some inclination among management to close the physical bureau but spare the two reporters and return them to city-side reporting, but that was squelched by business-side executives, according to sources.

The cutbacks sent the always-active rumor mill back into high gear.

“The rumor going around is that there is going to be a new round of buyouts very soon – and if you don’t take the buyout, you’re going to be laid off,” said another insider.

A Daily News spokesperson did not return a call for comment by presstime.

IN CONTROL

In Wednesday’s Media Ink, we said that the downsizing taking place at Fortune Small Business would also transform the magazine into a “custom published” title, but Time Inc. and American Express have since insisted that is not part of the plan.

Although FSB magazine will now be housed in Time Inc. Content Solutions group, a unit that ordinarily produces magazines for individual advertisers, neither American Express nor any advertiser will control the edit, the company said.

Time will have “total control” over editorial content, said a Time Inc. spokeswoman.

American Express sends FSB to about 1 million of its small business AmEx card holders.

keith.kelly@nypost.com