FOR the nation’s magazines, seven is proving to be an unlucky number.
Ron Burkle‘s magazine distribution company Source Interlink Cos. is joining Anderson News in demanding publishers pay an additional 7 cents for each copy of a magazine that it delivers to retailers, regardless of the actual number of copies sold by those retailers.
Anderson CEO Charles Anderson last week warned in a conference call with publishers that he would exit the business if publishers refused to pay the 7-cent fee, which he said would help Anderson News recoup expenses on what he called a money-losing business.
With Anderson News ranked as the No. 3 magazine distributor in the US, with 25 percent of the market, publishers hoped their refusal would force the company to retreat on imposing the fee.
But then Source Interlink dropped its bombshell in the form of Federal Express letters that arrived at publishers’ offices yesterday morning informing them that it, too, would begin demanding a 7-cent-per-mag fee starting Feb. 1.
“It is a crisis,” said one source.
* Source Interlink and Anderson News together are believed to control more than 50 percent of the nation’s magazine wholesale distribution to retailers.
The remaining big distributors – Jimmy Pattison‘s News Group, based in Atlanta and Vancouver, British Columbia, and New York-based Hudson News – have not sought a fee hike.
But if all magazine distributors follow suit, publishers worry it could sock them with an additional $1 billion a year in expenses at a time when they are contending with plunging advertising revenue and sagging newsstand sales.
Already, publishers predicted Anderson News’ price hike would cost them an additional $200 million a year.
“We’re in for it now,” said one worried publisher after he got the Source Interlink news. “It’s great to say, ‘Screw Anderson,’ but who are we going to get to replace them?”
Like Anderson News, Source Interlink claims it needs the fee hike to survive.
“As we continue to aggressi vely pursue and maintain an effective cost structure within our operation, we’ve come to the realiz ation that more needs to be done if we are going to overcome the daunt ing financial challenges that exist,” said Alan Tuchman, president of Source Interlink Distri bution, in his letter to publishers.
“We have no choice but to act quickly and expect that our publisher partners will support our efforts as we continue to provide you quality services,” he wrote.
Charles Anderson is set to huddle with four major national wholesalers tomorrow to discuss the fee hike, and sources say the issue could come to a head by next Tuesday.
That’s when the celebrity weeklies all ship issues that will go on sale by the Feb. 1 deadline.
Pinched
New York Times Co. Chairman Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger Jr. appears to have issued a de facto ban on Times staffers dining at Michael’s or the Four Seasons, the pricey watering holes of the media elite.
Times Deputy Managing Editor William Schmidt, in a memo written to the entire newsroom staff last week, reminded one and all that busi ness meals must con form to pricing guide lines that include $15 per person for break fast, $25 to $30 per per son for lunch and $45 to $50 a person for din ner.
The famed Michael’s Burger at the East Side eatery costs $30 alone.
And that’s not all. Schmidt said the company “will not subsidize or reimburse business meals or drinks involving only your fellow Times colleagues.
“In other words, we will not absorb the costs of taking one another out for drinks, lunch or dinner.”
Exceptions will be made in rare instances, Schmidt said, such as when an editor takes out a reporter to discuss a promotion.
Also out is the company paying for meals eaten at one’s desk.
“If a department is having a lun cheon meeting, for example, ed itors should encourage par ticipants to brown bag, bring down their own food from the cafeteria or share the cost of outside delivery.”
Ironically, Condé Nast was said to have been considering issu ing a similar cost-cutting memo last December, but sources said once Media Ink caught wind that it was in progress, Condé Nast Chairman S.I. Newhouse decided to kill the plan. keith.kelly@nypost.com