The Supermagazmes

Most new magazines start out with small circulations, hopefully strive for the big time over a period of months or years. But last week a new magazine came out, trumpeting a guaranteed circulation of 1,500.000. Its name: Better Living. It is the latest addition to the family of slick-paper, slickly written magazines sold chiefly at the check-out counters of chain stores and supermarkets. These folksy, foxy supermagazines which lure people into stores, then help sell the store's products, now have a combined circulation of about 10 million a month.

Better Living is the superproduct of Manhattan Promoter Edward W. Miller, the Supermarket Institute, representing some 5.000 U.S. stores, and McCall's, which provided $750,000, its printing plant and know-how. Miller raised another $750,000 from such private investors as Nelson Rockefeller and Clendenin Ryan (onetime owner of the American Mercury). Not till he had supermarket outlets for at least a million copies did Publisher Miller set his editorial staff to work. Said he: "Some people think there's a lot of quick money in this business. But you've got to have a good book, you have to spend money, and you can't look for profits right off the bat."

High Mortality. The reason for his restrained optimism is that the mortality in the field has been high; out of a hundred such magazines started in the past decade, only a handful are left. The first supermagazine was started 18 years ago by Harry Evans, onetime managing editor of the old Life. His Family Circle, a weekly throwaway to plug the wares of 1,275 Piggly Wiggly, Sanitary and Reeves stores, leaned heavily on food, fashion and Hollywood for its copy. It was so successful (1,000,000 circulation within a year) that Evans began to charge 2-c- for it.

Five years ago, it switched to a nickel monthly aimed at all ages (sample subjects: pets, "Teen Scene," "Are You Making Good as a Grandma?"). With 18 editions for its distributors (Safeway is the biggest), Circle is now planning to boost its guaranteed circulation from 2,300,000 to 3,000,000.

Low Caesarean. In 1937 the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. brought out Woman's Day to plug A. & P. lines. Now the giant of the field (circ. 3.900,000), the magazine crams its 124 to 188 slick pages with national ads, moony love stories and how-to-do-it articles (samples: how to re-string pearls, build cabinets, read faster, eat on a low budget). But A. & P. takes little profit out of its Woman's Day. The cash is put into more color pages and better copy to dress up the lure for shoppers.

Like the others,* Better Living's 96-page first issue is full of how-to-do-its (freeze strawberries, rewire lamps, earn money at home, arrange flowers, etc.), and the kind of clinical fiction housewives seem to love. The leading story is a cheerful piece on a day in the life of an obstetrician, by Old Standby Faith Baldwin. Sample quote: "If she proved to have a generally contracted pelvis, the measurements and the X ray would chart his course of action--a low Caesarean section, he hoped." Concludes the doctor at day's end: "What a wonderful job I have, what a wonderful life!"

* Among them: Everywoman's (circ. 1,000,000), Western Family (circ. 670,000), American Family (circ. 500,000).

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