Circulation now over 3,000,000 UNLESS you were a guest of India's Maharajah of Bharatpur during the 1930s, your chances of seeing a current issue of TIME anywhere outside North America were slim. The maharajah was then paying $585.60 a year to have his copy air-expressed to him each week; 20,000 other overseas subscribers waited for their copies to reach them by ship.
This week, as TIME marks its 37th birthday (first issue date: March 3, 1923), 544,000 copies of TIME'S four international editions will be air-speeded everywhere in the free world--sending TIME'S total worldwide circulation to a new high: more than 3,000,000, with an estimated readership of 12,500,000 in 121 countries.
The breakdown:
U.S. edition 2,480,000
TIME Latin America 69,000
TIME Pacific 100,000
TIME Atlantic 160,000
TIME Canada 215,000
Worldwide 3,024,000
The international editions are printed at plants in Tokyo, Melbourne, Havana, Paris and Chicago. In the 15 postwar years since we began printing overseas for civilians, TIME has become a familiar sight on newsstands and in subscribers' homes the world over, now reaches most readers on or before the date of issue. But not without some difficulties. TIME has been banned, burned and bedeviled in one way or another in 37 countries over the past 15 years.
The magazines are all in English and are virtually identical as to editorial content. Advertising pages vary, of course, with each edition. TIME Canada and TIME Latin America carry additional pages of news coverage of their respective areas.
TIME embarked on international publishing during World War II, when it began large-scale distribution to subscriber servicemen in military theaters throughout the world. Editions sprouted wherever printing facilities could be found, were delivered to military personnel in a variety of sizes and shapes. In 1941 we launched the first plane-delivered magazine, TIME Air Express, which later became TIME Latin America. In 1943 TIME Canada was founded.
By war's end, TIME was printing no fewer than 21 editions at plants scattered from Bogota to Manila, from Teheran to Stockholm. Thanks to air delivery, we were able to consolidate these into today's four international editions. A baffling complex of problems with distribution, censorship and currency restrictions almost smothered the venture in 1949, but as soon as the difficult decision to continue had been made, a steady growth toward today's circulation highs began to set in.
For all editions, speed of delivery is essential. With foreign printing plants and faster and farther-ranging air service, it is now possible to buy TIME in foreign capitals even before it reaches newsstands in some U.S. towns. Remote areas are still troublesome. After an irate subscriber in Tahiti complained that he was receiving his TIME in batches via bimonthly freighter from Noumea in New Caledonia, TIME distribution men worked out a biweekly air-freight schedule; circulation in Tahiti has since climbed from 60 to 108. Readers in New Guinea, who long complained about slow service, now receive air-expressed copies before the date of issue, and today number a record 1,300. But one lone subscriber on remote Christmas Island still receives his copies by fishing schooner once every three months.
TIME circulation in tightly censored Iron Curtain countries was until recently limited to a mere 322. Of the 92 copies delivered to the U.S.S.R., all but a handful go to government officials and foreign embassies. But Poland last month ordered 500 copies a week for newsstand distribution--TIME'S first public penetration of the Iron Curtain. On the other side of the Communist world, Red China has a grand total of three subscribers: the Pakistani embassy, the commercial counselor to the Finnish embassy, and a certain Chinese miss who shall be nameless.
To our venturesome Chinese miss, and to the other 3,000,000-plus around the world who buy TIME every week, our thanks and greetings on our 37th birthday.
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