Business

TOUCH-Y SUBJECT

THE Bauer Publishing celebrity titles In Touch and Life & Style are suffering as a result of their 50 percent price hike three weeks ago to $2.99 from $1.99.

Insiders at the Germany-based company concede there has been slippage and acknowledge that sometime next year the two magazines might be forced to lower their rate bases, defined as the amount of circulation they guarantee advertisers each issue.

The Bauer titles remain cheaper than their rivals, People, Star and Us Weekly, all of which raised their newsstand prices to $3.99 this fall.

Now, however, Bauer’s price increases seem to be blunting any advantage the titles had for being at the lower end of the price scale.

In Touch, the big sister in the stable, currently guarantees that it will deliver advertisers at least 1.2 million copies a week. How much is it delivering? Estimates range from a low of 850,000 to a high of 1.1 million.

The struggling Life & Style, which recently underwent a major editorial downsizing, promises to sell 700,000 copies each week. In recent weeks, its numbers have slipped – to as low as 450,000 for the latest issue, according to some estimates..

In fairness, none of the other competing celebrity magazines are going gangbusters, either, but their declines are nowhere near the 20 percent to 40 percent falloffs that the Bauer titles are experiencing.

Ian Scott, president of Bauer advertising sales, said, “It will take us to the beginning of next year to get a real good understanding of the picture.”

Many observers think that Life & Style, which failed to reach 1 million circulation as quickly as In Touch and was already believed to be losing money, is now in imminent danger of folding.

Scott insisted, “We are 100 percent supporting the [Life & Style] magazine.”

Pausch pot

Jeffrey Zaslow, The Wall Street Journal columnist who is writing a memoir based on the “Last Lecture” of terminally ill Carnegie Mellon University Professor Randy Pausch, has a lot to be thankful for this season.

The wild book auction ended earlier this week with Hyperion, the publishing arm of Walt Disney, inking a deal with an advance said to be worth $6.75 million.

Hyperion bested HarperCollins, the book publishing arm of News Corp., which also owns The Post. Another bidder, Little Brown, a part of the Hachette Filipacchi conglomerate, dropped out earlier.

Pausch, a computer science professor, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which is generally regarded as terminal. He’s expected to live just a few more months.

He became a bit of a celebrity this fall after Zaslow wrote several columns about a moving and upbeat lecture Pausch gave in September. It was part of a “Last Lecture” series taking place at several colleges in which professors impart life lessons to their students as if the lecture were the last they’d ever deliver.

As part of the deal with Hyperion, there is believed to be some kind of payment to Pausch’s family. The professor is married with three young children.

Calls to Hyperion President Robert Miller, Zaslow and agent David Black were not returned, but one source with knowledge of the situation said that the publisher was expected to officially announce it Monday.

keith.kelly@nypost.com