Diller Says: Publishers Are Ready To Sue The Tech Giants (mediapost.com)

In a letter transmitted today to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Postal Service provided service performance charts showing significant increases in all mail categories. “As the charts show, service performance improved across all major mail categories in the weeks prior to my testimony (delivered on August 24), and this trend has continued through August, returning to early-July levels,” said Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in his letter to the Committee. “This recovery took place while still adhering to our existing transportation schedules. In other words, we are improving service performance while more consistently running our trucks on time.”

The four large publicly traded consumer publishers that recently reported their financial results for the quarter ended March 31 were all able to point to some good financial news. HarperCollins had the best results, with sales up 6.4% compared to the same quarter last year and profits rising 16.2%. In a conference call discussing results, Susan Panuccio, CFO of HC parent company News Corp, said the sales gains were led by the general and Christian publishing divisions. Backlist titles did particularly well, accounting for 58% of revenue in the quarter, compared to 52% a year ago, Panuccio said. She added that the strong performance of the backlist helped to boost margins. Another important contributor was downloadable audiobooks. The format had strong gains in the quarter, helping to offset softness in e-book sales and leading to a 5% increase in overall digital sales at HC compared to the prior year. The company said that downloadable audio accounted for about 25% of all digital revenue in the recent period. Digital sales represented 22% of consumer revenue for the quarter—the same percentage the format accounted for in the quarter last year. Click Read More below for additional information.

The shortlist for the prestigious Newspaper and Magazine Awards (NME) has been announced, with two Bauer titles being nominated. Eclipse Mega Monthly Wordsearch is shortlisted for Newsstand Magazine of the Year – General for the second year in a row and Take a Break Puzzle Annual has been nominated for in the new category, Bookazine of the Year. With regards to the two nominations, John Simmonds, Publisher of Puzzles Titles comments “It’s amazing to have two titles from the puzzle portfolio shortlisted for this year’s NMA Awards. 2023 was a great year for our puzzle brands – a year in which Take a Break Puzzles became the biggest selling puzzle brand in the UK. Being nominated in these two categories is a reflection of the hard work of the teams involved, not just in these two titles, but across all of the portfolio.”