AS publisher of TIME, the Weekly Newsmagazine, I would like to introduce a colleague--the publisher of TIME International. His name is Ralph Davidson, and his particular responsibility is to organize and supervise the circulation, distribution and advertising of TIME'S international editions. It is a newly created position, which Davidson has held since the beginning of this year. It reflects the growing size and importance of these editions, which now have a worldwide weekly circulation of nearly 1,000,000 and advertising revenues of more than $18 million.

The largest in the group is TIME Canada, which sells 350,000 copies a week, an increase of 75% in the last decade. Printed in Montreal, it offers the full editorial content of TIME U.S., plus four pages of Canadian news written and edited by a Canadian staff. Our other international editions, each with its own regional advertising areas, are: Atlantic, printed in Paris; Latin America, printed in Atlanta but soon to move to Panama; Asia, in Tokyo; South Pacific, in Melbourne and Auckland. They are produced with foreign ads by photographing the text of the U.S. edition and flying the film to the various overseas printing plants.

The growth of the South Pacific edition has been especially heartening to TIME. In 1932, we sold 76 magazines a week in Australia and 22 in New Zealand, all of them copies of the U.S. edition, which took about four weeks to get there by boat. In 1946, when TIME International was created, the new Pacific edition went to 3,600 Australians and 900 New Zealanders. Today our circulation in Australia is 74,000 and in New Zealand is 30,000. This week Publisher Davidson begins a tour of both countries to visit our printing plants and advertising offices and, above all, to meet as many of our readers and friends as possible.

Ralph Davidson, 39, was born in Santa Fe, N. Mex., and grew up in Los Angeles, graduating with an A.B. in international relations from Stanford University in 1950. He joined Time Inc. four years later. After various jobs in the advertising-sales field, he became our European advertising director in 1962. His present job, and that of TIME International, was defined some years ago by Henry R. Luce: "To put into the hands of anyone who wishes to read it, wherever in the world he may be, a copy of the unexpurgated standard edition of TIME in English, not later than the date of issue."

The aim is occasionally frustrated by political censorship. At present, TIME is kept out of much of the Middle East. For five years the magazine was prohibited in Indonesia, but that ban was happily lifted ten months ago. Since we had maintained a list of our subscribers there, we immediately resumed sending them their copies. Fortunately, such problems do not arise in Australia or New Zealand, where Publisher Davidson and all of us hope for continued, expanding demand and interest.

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