Reader's Digest Publisher Succumbs to Bankruptcy Again

Fox News ^ | February 18, 2013 | Matt Egan and Barbara Kollmeyer

[Zakeet]

In a bid to slash $465 million of debt, Reader

[sakic]

Content has nothing to do with their demise. All magazines are dying. The ones holding on the longest are those with the narrowest focus, but they will eventually die, too.

[Colinsky]

I have a copy of the August 1937 issue of Reader’s Digest. The subhead is “Articles of Lasting Interest,” and you know what? All the articles are still pretty darned interesting.

Back then it was a dumbed-down version of important magazines. Today it’s a dumbed-down version of TV.

[anoldafvet]

I gave up after global warming and all the advertisements for the LDS church. If I remember, it was tough to stop. They automatically renew and bill you. I got the dunning letters to stop after I requested they show me proof that I renewed.

[jimt]

After they crapped all over their main audience pimping homosexuality, racism, “People” style crap, etc., and quit publishing quality material they were destined for bankruptcy.

I was a Reader’s Digest fan for many years. Wouldn’t take it for free now.

[kcvl]

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.[4] Since its inception, Reader’s Digest has maintained a conservative[5] and anti-communist perspective on political and social issues.[6] 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 magazine’s parent company, The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc. (RDA), became a publicly traded corporation in 1990. As of 2010 RDA has reported a net loss each year since 2005[citation needed]. In March 2007, Ripplewood Holdings LLC led a consortium of private equity investors who bought the company through a leveraged buy-out for US$2.8 billion, financed primarily by the issuance of US$2.2 billion of debt.[4][4][11] 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.[4]

On 24 August 2009 RDA announced it had filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy court a pre-arranged Chapter 11 bankruptcy, in order to continue operations, and to restructure the $2.2 billion debt undertaken by the leveraged buy-out transaction.[4][12][13] The company emerged from bankruptcy with the lenders exchanging debt for equity, and Ripplewood’s entire equity investment was extinguished.[4]

In 2001, 32 states attorneys general reached agreements with the company and other sweepstakes operators to settle allegations that they tricked the elderly into buying products because they were a “guaranteed winner” of a lottery. The settlement required the companies to expand the type size of notices in the packaging that no purchase is necessary to play the sweepstakes

Reader’s Digest in the UK has been criticised by the Trading Standards Institute for preying on the elderly and vulnerable with misleading bulk mailings that claim the recipient is guaranteed a large cash prize and advising them not to discuss this with anyone else.

[dfwgator]

Did I read that in recent years Reader’s Digest has morphed into the most worthless piece of Marxist trash?

So Colonel Flagg was right after all.

[Buckeye McFrog]

“My favorite feature is It Pays To Enrich Your Word Power.

That......thing.....is......very......very.......very..............good!”

-Homer Simpson

[Steely Tom]

Didn’t they do away with that years ago ???

Probably. Oh well.

[Karliner]

I used to love the RD.I knew the world was over years ago but when they shut down the pulp mills at almost the same time our only bookstore( besides second hand) Borders...uh oh or was int Barnes and Noble?? anyway, they went under, and closed it’s doors.
One of my fav past times gone, reading newspapers,mags and books while sipping a cuppa Joe at some obscure local hang out or yes, the bookstore.
Readers Diget was fun as my grandpa( a doc) subscribed to it so when I was doing office work with grams( forced child labor:P) the occasional breaks were filled with reading the stories or jokes aloud.
“Life in These United States.”

[Behind Liberal Lines]

I cancelled my subscription last week when the latest issue showed up with an article calling Obama's Newtown gun control speech his "Gettysburg Address."

I called and let them know exactly why I was cancelling.

[BwanaNdege]

Pretty accurate summation.

You did omit the mention of half a dozen hard card advertisement inserts which make it impossible to thumb through the magazine.

Also, the article layouts, graphics and fonts are indistinguishable from the ads.

Then there is the obligatory four page, micro print legal announcement/disclaimer for some new medical product which someone hopes will prevent a shakedown by tort lawyers.

This month’s issue (March 2013) had three, count em’ three, items in Humor in Uniform.

Lastly, the moral values of their editors seem to have been formed by watching MTV & reading “Self” or “US” magazine.

[redhead]

Somehow, I managed to acquire (without my knowledge or consent) a full year's subscription to the rag last year. Month after month, the things appeared in my mailbox, and month after month, they went directly into the trash without being opened. Thank goodness, I got a "final" copy last month.

RD went off the tracks when they started adding full color, full-page ads and slick formatting, and slimming down. I had a collection of the plump, newsy gems of the fifties, and I read every word in every one of them, even the stories I had no real interest in. If RD croaks this year, it will be a merciful, long-delayed croaking. Good riddance.

[longtermmemmory]

leftis = financial catastrophy.

air america
current TV
multiple newspapers
TV news ad revenue
pmsnbc...

[longtermmemmory]

leftis = financial catastrophy.

air america
current TV
multiple newspapers
TV news ad revenue
pmsnbc...

[Revolting cat!]

Rats, I was counting on an abridged version of Dan Brown’s upcoming masterpiece “Inferno”. (Abridged to 2 pages, that is.)

[EDINVA]

Those free bus rides were an incredibly clever part of the employment package. RD was by far the best of local employment back in the day.

[Wiser now]

I know how you ended up with that subscription. There was a copy of the Feb. issue in yesterday’s mail, complete with a bill. This after I insisted they remove my name from the mailing list last year!
Needless to say, I called them immediately and got their (Indian) call center, complete with a woman who had no idea what to do.
Before the call was connected I had been asked if I was willing to take a brief survey.
i let them have it. I also requested a call from a supervisor whose native language is English. I’m still waiting.