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Image file | Reader's Digest cover, May 2011.jpg |
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Editor | Peggy Northrop |
Editor title | Editor-in-chief |
Circulation | 7.1 million |
Company | The Reader's Digest Association |
Founder | DeWitt and Lila Bell Wallace |
Firstdate | |
Country | United States |
Based | New York, New York |
Website | rd.com |
Issn | 0034-0375 |
Reader's Digest, a general interest family magazine, published 10 times annually. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, its headquarters is now in New York City. It was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace. For many years, Reader's Digest was the best-selling consumer magazine in the United States, losing the distinction in 2009 to Better Homes and Gardens. According to Mediamark Research, it reaches more readers with household incomes of $100,000+ than Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week and Inc. combined.
Global editions of Reader's Digest reach an additional 40 million people in more than 70 countries, with 50 editions in 21 languages. It has a global circulation of 17 million, making it the largest paid circulation magazine in the world. It is also published in Braille, digital, audio, and a version in large type called Reader's Digest Large Print. The magazine is compact, with its pages roughly half the size of most American magazines'. Hence, in the summer of 2005, the U.S. edition adopted the slogan, "America in your pocket." In January 2008, it was changed to "Life well shared."
The magazine was started by Dewitt Wallace, while recovering from shrapnel wounds received in World War I. Wallace had the idea to gather a sampling of favorite articles on many subjects from various monthly magazines, sometimes condensing and rewriting them, and to combine them into one magazine. and anti-communist perspective on political and social issues. The Wallaces initially hoped the journal could provide $5,000 of net income. Mr. Wallace’s continuing correct assessment of what the potential mass-market audience wanted to read led to rapid growth. By 1929, the magazine had 290,000 subscribers and had a gross income of $900,000 a year. The first international edition was published in the United Kingdom in 1938 and was sold at 2 shillings. By the 40th anniversary of Reader’s Digest, there were 40 international editions, in 13 languages and Braille, and it was the largest-circulating journal in Canada, Mexico, Spain, Sweden, Peru and other countries, with a total international circulation of 23 million. The author's name, Wilfred J. Funk, was disclosed in the February 1945 issue. In December 1952 the magazine published "Cancer by the Carton", a series of articles that linked smoking with lung cancer. This first brought the dangers of smoking to public attention which, up to then, had ignored the health threats.
From 2002 through 2006, Reader's Digest conducted a vocabulary competition in schools throughout the United States called Reader's Digest National Word Power Challenge (NWPC). In 2007, the magazine said it had decided not to have the competition for the 2007–2008 school year, "but rather to use the time to evaluate the program in every respect, including scope, mission, and model for implementation."
In 2006, the magazine published three more local-language editions in Slovenia, Croatia and Romania. In October 2007, the Digest expanded in Serbia. The magazine's licensee in Italy stopped publishing in December 2007. The magazine launched in The People's Republic of China in 2008.
For 2010, the U.S. edition of the magazine planned to decrease its circulation to 5.5 million, from 8 million, to publish 10 times a year rather than 12, and to increase digital offerings. It also planned to reduce its number of celebrity profiles and how-to features, and increase the number of inspiring spiritual stories and stories about the military. Ripplewood invested $275 million of its own money, and had partners including Rothschild Bank of Zurich and GoldenTree Asset Management of New York. The private equity deal tripled the association's interest payments, to $148 million a year. The company emerged from bankruptcy with the lenders exchanging debt for equity, and Ripplewood's entire equity investment was extinguished.
In the US the company cut the number of issues it published a year from 12 to 10 last year. It also cut its circulation guarantee for advertisers to 5.5 million copies from 8 million.
# Establish a "Do Not Contact List" and refrain from soliciting any future "high-activity" customers unless and until Reader's Digest actually makes contact with that customer and determines that the customer is not buying because he or she thinks that the purchase will improve his or her chances of winning. # Send letters to individuals who spend more than $1,000 in a six-month period telling them that they are not required to make purchases to win the sweepstakes, that making a purchase will not improve their chances of winning and that, in fact, all entries have the same chance to win whether or not the entry is accompanied by a purchase.
The agreement appeared to adversely affect Reader's Digest circulation in the U.S. Its 1970s peak circulation was 17 million U.S. subscribers. The ASA investigation upheld the complaint, ruling that the Reader's Digest mailing was irresponsible, misleading (particularly for the elderly) and had breached three clauses of the CAP code. Reader's Digest were told not to use this mailing again.
Reader's Digest is currently published in 52 editions and 35 languages and is available in over 100 countries, including Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, and the People's Republic of China in 2008.
Its international editions account for about 50% of the magazine's trade volume. In each market, local editors commission or purchase articles for their own market and share content with US and other editions. The selected articles are then translated by local translators and the translations edited by the local editors to make them match the "well-educated informal" style of the American edition.
Over the 87 years, the company has published editions in various languages in different countries, or for different regions.
Usually these editions started out as translations of the US version of the magazine, but over time many non-US editions became unique, providing local material more germane to local readers. Local editions that still publish the bulk of the American Reader's Digest are usually titled with a qualifier, such as the Portuguese edition, Seleções do Reader's Digest (Selections from Reader's Digest), or the Swedish edition, Reader's Digest Det Bästa (The Best of Reader's Digest).
The list is sorted by year of first publication. Some countries had editions but no longer do; for example, the Danish version of Reader's Digest (Det Bedste) ceased publication in 2005 and was replaced by the Swedish version (Reader's Digest Det Bästa); as a result the Swedish edition covers stories about both countries (but written solely in Swedish). The Italian version (Selezione) ran for 60 years until it was shut down in 2007, and the Japanese edition ran from September 1946 until February 1986.
The second effort and the first Reader's Digest franchise agreement was negotiated through the efforts of Frederick Pittera, in 1976, an American entrepreneur, who sold the idea to Lebanon's former Foreign Minister, Dr. Lucien Dahdah, then son-in-law of Suleiman Frangieh, President of Lebanon. Dahdah partnered with Ghassan Al Tueni, (former Lebanon Ambassador to the United Nations, and publisher of Al Nahar newspaper, Beirut), in publishing Reader's Digest in the Arabic language. It was printed in Cairo for distribution throughout the Arab world under title Al- Mukhtar. In format, Al-Mukhtar was the same as the U.S. edition with 75% of the editorial content. Dr. Philip Hitti, Chairman of Princeton University's Department of Oriental Languages and a team of Arabic advisers counseled on what would be of interest to Arabic readers. The publication of Al-Mukhtar was terminated by Reader's Digest in April 1993.
"Life's Like That" is the Canadian name of "Life in These United States." All other titles are taken from the American publication. Recent "That's Outrageous" articles have been using editorials from the Calgary Sun.
Under new management—the new editor is Robert Goyette—the Canadian edition continues to publish.
The Indian Reader’s Digest was owned for many years by the Tata Group of companies.
Category:American magazines Category:American monthly magazines Category:American political magazines Category:Conservative American magazines Category:Digests Category:General interest digests Category:Lifestyle magazines Category:Private equity portfolio companies Category:Publications established in 1922
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