Reader’s Digest Revamps Amid Topsy-Turvy Fiscal Forecasts Pleasantville, New York has always been a delightfully apt address for the Reader’s Digest Association. Ensconced there in its bucolic 113-acre campus — the global headquarters for an empire old DeWitt Wallace built on tales of anodyne, American optimism — Reader’s Digest was pleasantry incarnate. For the 100…Continue Reading
McGraw-Hill’s Kids Group Sets Sights on the Trade Eleven years ago McGraw-Hill Inc. sacked more than 1,000 people and gutted its own infrastructure, shrinking its operating units from what had once been five, to three, and then two. Corporate vultures were regularly dive-bombing the company’s Sixth Avenue headquarters, girding for the last great hostile takeover…Continue Reading
Advance publicity for this year’s Toy Fair generated all the thrill of a wet blanket, with announcements rolling in from industry giants Mattel and Hasbro that their presence at the 98-year-old show will be significantly notched down in 2002. As talk of “downsizing” and “retrenching” swirled in the press, we were also treated to the…Continue Reading
The announcement that the New York Times will start publishing a children’s bestseller list on July 23 has been met with the sort of jaded, industrywide cynicism that one would expect from such a move. Timed to coincide with the mega-release of Harry Potter 4 (aka Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, as seen…Continue Reading
Copious amounts of ink flowed in the pages of the trade press and the New York Times on the subject of the most recent Licensing Show, which took place June 13–15 at the Javits Center in New York. Unhappily for exhibitors, however, the lucrative patina around the likes of Eloise and Curious George could do…Continue Reading
Tasmanian Devils Australia’s Panty Line, France’s Tranquil Madness, and the Sub-Continent’s Al Pacino As droves of Australians sashay into the pantry this month with the bestselling Marie Claire cooking title Food Fast, the rest of the literate world down under has been taking a peek under the Visible Panty Line with the newest from Australia’s…Continue Reading
