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Audacity of Truth
"Change" You Can Believe In:
"Nixon didn’t try to do that. They couldn't control (the media). They didn’t try. [...] What the hell do they think we are, puppets?"
- Liberal opinion writer Helen Thomas, describing the Obama admin's penchant for heavily scripting public appearances & press conferences - 7/1/09
Us Magazine losing readers after anti-Palin story
MSNBC’s The Scoop reports:
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Three celebrity weeklies — OK!, People and Us Weekly — featured Sarah Palin on their cover, but one of those magazines is reportedly losing subscribers because of it.
Us Weekly, which unlike People and OK!, chose a rather caustic cover line (”Babies, Lies and Scandal”) is said to have lost thousands of subscribers in just the first 24 hours following the printing of the issue.
“I’m hearing it’s 5,000, maybe more” says one well-placed source in the industry. Another source claimed that as many as 10,000 readers have already cancelled their subscriptions. A spokesperson for Wenner Media, which publishes Us, says “it is completely false that we are losing 10,000 subscribers.” As for the 5,000 estimate, the spokesperson only said “that is false, too” but wouldn’t comment further.
Five thousand might not seem like a large number at first glance, but it’s significant in the context of Us’ printing schedule. The magazine goes to press Monday night, which means subscribers don’t receive their issues until Friday or Saturday. In other words, the cancellations are coming from subscribers who, in many cases, haven’t even gotten their hands on the actual issue.
“When Us went to print Monday night, it looked like the ticket was falling apart,” says one magazine editor. “They went to print thinking Palin was dead in the water, and their mistake was thinking everyone who reads Us is a Democrat, when they’re not. Readers are loyal, but the base of a political party is more loyal. They don’t need to read the magazine when there’s so much press around it to know to be upset.”
Upset might be an understatement: One Us advertiser has admitted that they’ve received calls from angry former subscribers threatening to boycott their products. “(Us publisher) Jann Wenner supports Obama, Wenner media decided to follow the buzz around Palin before her speech, and now subscribers feel like a vote has been cast on their behalf,” says another magazine editor. “It’s going to be tough to bounce back from this one. Especially if the advertisers get involved. If they get nervous, that can hurt all of us.”
Warner Todd Huston responds:
This speaks to the arrogance of the left leaning media establishment. They were so darn sure that they could successfully destroy Sarah Palin that they counted their chickens before they were hatched. They assumed that by the time they printed and shipped their magazine, they would have succeeded in forcing McCain to boot her from the ticket.
They didn’t know how tough Sarah Palin really was, nor how outraged their readership would be.
To appropriate a saying, arrogance goeth before the fall. And “Us Weekly” just took a tumble.
Yep.Â
I wonder how the controversy over the Us magazine cover (and story) will translate at the check-out counters?
In related news – via QandO – TMZ reports that the rock band Heart has filed a “ceast and desist” letter against the McCain campaign for their use of Heart’s “Barracuda” song as a theme song for Gov. Sarah “Barracuda” Palin. What a couple of bratty, spoilsports.
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14 Responses to “Us Magazine losing readers after anti-Palin story”
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The Wilson sisters can’t stop me from hearing that gritty guitar riff from their song in my head every time Sarah! appears on my TV screen.
Can they…?
Yes we have only lost 9900 readers so far, so the 10,000 number is COMPLETELY false.
Talk about living in a vaccuum. What, why would anyone think that this ticket was “falling apart”?? What kind of idiots are leading these magazines??
I have never really liked Heart anyway. Even when I worked at the head shop, oppps sorry the “tobacco” store, LOL
, I would never listen to them. Their music was just so boring. Much like the Stones, and Aerosmith, and an assortment of others that pretty much sounded alike. – Lorica
I’m not sure that Heart has a leg to stand on. If I buy their CD, it’s now my property…I can play it anywhere I want, and as loud as I want, as long as I’m not violating local public-disturbance laws. It would seem to me that all the Palin campaign would need to do is show the receipt to prove they bought the music and innocently state that it’s only being played to entertain people, not to imply an endorsement.
My local supermarket has music playing constantly. If they’re playing “Piano Man”, it doesn’t mean Billy Joel is endorsing Shop-Rite.
I guess we’d need an opinion from a good intellectual property lawyer to know for sure.
Thanks, ST! I, at first, had no real issues with the magazine. Obviously, they’re entitled to put whatever they wanted on the cover; obviously the readers are free to buy the magazine on the newstands or cancel their subscriptions if they don’t like what they’re getting. And the advertisers are free to pull their adverts.
But I am appalled by the arrogance of the editors, who assumed on the basis of nothing, that the Governercuda would vanish from the ticket. (Recall Churchill after Hitler’s failure to ring Britain’s neck like a chicken: “Some chicken; some neck.”)
To GWR: I’m no intellectual property lawyer, but I worked in the book publishing industry and know a bit about the subject since there were times I had to get authors to track down permission to quote from song lyrics, movies, etc.
Insofar as I know, yes–you have every right to play your legally purchased CD or legally downloaded iTune whenever and wherever you want, as long as you aren’t in violation of local noise ordinances.
As for stores, bars, dance clubs, etc.: If they’re playing music from a radio or music mixes they have created from their own legally purchased CDs, they should be in the clear, just so long as they are not charging patrons for the “privilege” of listening to the music. In other words, you’re paying for the beer, you’re not paying for the music when you enter the bar. And the same goes for the football game on the bar TV. (Which is why the NFL always puts in that copyright notice during one of the commercials.)
Much of the print and television news outlets are heading toward becoming obscure, while more honest, even-handed news agencies like Fox, Drudge and the like are becoming more and more mainstream. All as a result of the aforementioned arrogance of those who run the networks and newspapers. The New York Times is another example of an incredibly slanted “news” outlet that is losing money and subscribers at a shocking rate.
The CD is your property, but its contents remain — legally at least — the intellectual property of the copyright owner.
I don’t know for sure whether that can be applied to a song’s use at political events, as long as the party or campaign is making its royalty payments to the appropriate royalty-payment clearinghouse (usually, I believe, BMI or ASCAP), but artists have no qualms about talking to the media as if they can veto such use.
My own comment about earworming “Barracuda” was, of course, entirely satirical.
Disclaimer: IANAL!
I’ve been reading one the Hillary Clinton forums that’s heavy with PUMA sentiment (Shh! Don’t tell! I’m undercover!
), and several there said they had already complained to grocery store managers about the US cover and succeeded in getting it removed from the shelves.
Operation Chaos continues.
The way I understand it–and my direct knowledge of the music industry is a few years old–McGehee is right. Radio stations must pay a fee to such agencies as BMI and ASCAP, and those agencies monitor playlists to determine how royalties should be distributed. It’s a tad complicated. I believe that other venues that play music also have to pay a fee to BMI, ASCAP and CAPAC, and perhaps others as well, but I’m not sure where they draw the line. Playing a homemade mix may well be a copyright violation if it is played in a public venue, whether the CDs were legally purchased or not; I don’t know. Playing the radio in a public place is always legal, but recording from the radio is not.
If the proper fees have been paid, the Wilson sisters can’t stop anyone from playing their song, no matter how mad it makes them. What I don’t like is that this will mean more royalties for them.
Add this to the mix of bemusement: the two members of the band who actually wrote Barracuda are okay with the song being played.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the necessary performance fees were paid.
LINK
So the Wilson sisters can, as an ex-boyfriend of mine used to say, go run up a rosebush.
The little hypocrites. (Democrats in their little nests use this phrase, so why not I and mine?) They are going to be “good” little PCs, while raking in more money than they’ve probably seen in twenty years.
I don’t like the song, and would prefer something else–preferably a song not done by Heart, for whom I never cared much. I never thought their material was very well written. Pat Benetar would be a much better choice.
Trish, think of it this way: they’re not getting rich for being stupid, they’re getting rich for making (IMO) great music.
Unless and until they announce from a European stage that they’re ashamed of their president, they haven’t quite equalled the Dixie Chicks.
OTOH, I wasn’t contemplating buying more of their music even before I heard this, so … easy for me to say, I guess.
Since I don’t like their music, McGehee, I can’t really agree with you on that. But my point was that, without this brouhaha, nobody would have remembered them.
Whether the [McCain]campaign needs permission to play “Barracuda.”
Just a humble opinion….but if I ran a successful magazine and enjoyed my yearly Christmas bonus…I would avoid any mention of any political candidate. The Hollywood and New York crowd are fair game…but its not the best idea to attract negative political attention.
So I’m betting on a 12,000 total on cancelled subscriptions….with another 12,000 who bought the magazine at the check-out stand. And figure 300 guys throughout the US who are picking up the cover and turning it around backwards at the checkout stand. So you toss in another 3,000 who won’t see it and just pass on by. Thats a fair number of folks to lose to, and you probably won’t make this back up.
The exec in charge? I’m betting they leave by January and take a year off.