Since Oprah’s iconic daytime talk show show went off the air last September, her magazine’s newsstand sales have also dissappeared, reports Adweek.
O Magazine publisher Hearst had originally downplayed the impact of the show’s ending on the magazine, saying they expected fans to turn to it to get their Oprah fix.
However, The Oprah Magazine’s newsstand sales plunged 32 percent to 413,363 in the second half of last year (after an 8 percent falloff in the first half), according to just-released Audit Bureau of Circulations figures. By comparison, all measured consumer magazines’ single-copy sales dropped 10 percent.
O was able to limit total second-half circulation to a decline of just 5 percent, thanks to a 4 percent increase in subscriptions—although they bring in less money per sub than they used to.
The rep said that with the economy soft and the show ending, a dropoff in newsstand sales wasn’t a surprise and pointed out that newsstand sales of the January issue were up 28 percent to 825,000.
Meanwhile, the daytime talk queen is struggling to win viewers to her new Oprah Winfrey Network, where her audience is a fraction of what it used to be. Amid low viewing figures, Rosie O’Donnell’s show on OWN has laid off 30 people, moved to a smaller studio and scaled back the program.
