A. & P.'s Day

Favorite observation of saturnine old newspapermen, who remember how rich Groceryman Frank Andrew Munsey bought 17 important newspapers between 1912 and 1924 and killed half of them through his thumping ignorance of practical newspapering, is that nothing has been right in the profession since "the grocers took over the newspaper business." Last week the grocers got a better grip on the magazine business.

It all started five years ago when spry little Harry Evans began giving away the monthly Family Circle, which now goes to 1,477,000 housewives over the counters of five important grocery chains. Last week the 15,000 stores of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. became newsstands for an even more pretentious giveaway. From 215,000 contest entries A. & P. paid two women each $1,000 for the title Woman's Day. Mrs. Haydie Yates, who once ran a western dude ranch and became managing editor of Today and New York Woman in rapid succession, was selected to serve up a magazine of household utility, designed to tell women how to use the food they buy. Fashioned around menus and home hints, the 8 1/2-in. by 11 1/2-in. 32-page magazine will carry no fiction or film gossip as does Family Circle.

Publisher of Woman's Day is Stores Publishing Co., an A. & P. subsidiary. Its president is A. & P. Adman Donald Parker Hanson, who will send the magazine in bulk to individual A. & P. stores at cost, less any advertising income. Its first issue of 815,000 copies carried over $13,000 in paid advertising, nearly half from A. & P. and its manufacturing subsidiaries.

The suspicious advertising trade could look in vain through Woman's Day for signs that A. & P. intended to use its magazine for editorial propagandizing in favor of chain stores. The Robinson-Patman Act was designed in part to end the evils of advertising allowances from manufacturer to retailer, and Publisher Hanson has stoutly denied that Woman's Day is an attempt to salvage these lost allowances. However, six manufacturers from whom A. & P. buys goods are represented in the first issue of Woman's Day.

Publisher Hanson will continue the weekly A. & P. Menu, a handout which rose to 750.000 circulation, has cost his company a million dollars in six years. The first Thursday of each month the Menu will be part of Woman's Day. With true grocery psychology, A. & P. printed on the cover of free Woman's Day: "Price 3-c-" coyly crossed out the figure.

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