[Peaches]

Reader's Digest, caught industrywide advertising slump, to file for Chapter 11
Andrew Vanacore, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 17, 2009

NEW YORK - The publisher of Reader's Digest, the country's most popular general interest magazine, said Monday it will file for Chapter 11 protection with a plan to swap a portion of its debt for ownership of the company.
Reader's Digest Association Inc., owned by the New York private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings since 2007, said Monday it has reached an agreement in principle with a majority of secured lenders to erase a portion of the US$1.6 billion they hold in senior secured notes. The lenders will get ownership in return.

The planned filing, which does not include operations outside the United States, comes amid declining circulation, an industrywide advertising slump and large debts.
Reader's Digest, the monthly magazine founded in 1922 as a collection of condensed articles from other publications, has been searching for a niche as the Internet upends the magazine industry's traditional business models.

Full article: http://finance.sympatico.msn.ca/investing/...mentid=21208819

[JDoors]

They still have like five million subscribers -- who can't make money on that? All I need is fifty cents from each of five million people and I'd be a happy camper. Ten cents. I'd settle for a penny. Just joking.

Ages ago I read my sister's subscription, later I subscribed but they got too political (not MY political affiliation) and I cancelled. Many years after that I read somewhere that they were TOTALLY in the tank for MY political affiliation and I thought, that's odd, they were the exact OPPOSITE the last time I had read it. So I checked it out and sure enough, they'd swung the other way. Now I couldn't care less, one way or the other, unbiased or not.

[jcl]

JDoors, on Aug 18 2009, 07:14 AM, said:

They still have like five million subscribers -- who can't make money on that? All I need is fifty cents from each of five million people and I'd be a happy camper. Ten cents. I'd settle for a penny. Just joking.

Keep in mind that most of their subscribers will expire before their subscriptions.

[JDoors]

jcl, on Aug 18 2009, 10:03 AM, said:

Keep in mind that most of their subscribers will expire before their subscriptions.

Oww!

[hitest]

JDoors, on Aug 19 2009, 06:33 AM, said:

jcl, on Aug 18 2009, 10:03 AM, said:

Keep in mind that most of their subscribers will expire before their subscriptions.

Oww!

Ha-ha-ha-ha, absolutely classic, jcl.

[irregularjoe]

They are the country's most popular general interest magazine?
Which country is that?
The last time I remember seeing a copy of RD was in a doctor's office around 1965.

This post has been edited by irregularjoe: 20 August 2009 - 05:57 AM

[JDoors]

Wow, if I had to remember the last time I actually held a copy in my hands ... My memory doesn't go back that far. Several decades maybe?