Penguin to buy Simon & Schuster (sungazette.com)

FY2022 fourth quarter service performance scores covering July 1 through Aug. 12 included: *First-Class Mail: 93.0 percent of First-Class Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, consistent with performance from the fiscal third quarter. *Marketing Mail: 94.3 percent of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, consistent with performance from the fiscal third quarter. *Periodicals: 86.5 percent of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, consistent with performance from the fiscal third quarter.

The media companies RTL Deutschland and Gruner + Jahr are joining forces to form a new national cross-media champion. The decision follows a review process lasting several months, with the aim of deepening the successful collaboration between the country’s leading private TV, radio, and streaming group and the publishing house with its powerful brands. The new company will start operating as one at the beginning of next year. Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Rabe says: “The relevant bodies, RTL Group’s Board, and Bertelsmann’s Executive Board and Supervisory Board, have come to the conclusion that RTL Deutschland and G+J can better exploit their growth potential together. By forming this national media champion, Bertelsmann is implementing its strategic priorities as it has already done in France, the Netherlands and Belgium. This will strengthen our media businesses in the German market in the competition with the global tech platforms,” Rabe continued, “No other media company in this country can create such a cross-genre growth alliance. RTL Deutschland and G+J are a content powerhouse that combines the content expertise of 1,500 journalists, among other things. The companies bring together strong content and brands across the various media under one roof. This will generate annual synergies of around 100 million euros – largely due to growth.”

Total revenues across all categories for July 2023 were down 10.9% as compared to July 2022, coming in at $902.6 million. Year-to-date revenues were down 0.9%, at $6.5 billion for the first seven months of the year. Trade (Consumer Books) revenues were down 5.9% in July, coming in at $599.1 million. In terms of physical paper format revenues during the month of July, in the Trade (Consumer Books) category, Hardback revenues were down 1.6%, coming in at $165.8 million; Paperbacks were down 11.9%, with $232.1 million in revenue; Mass Market was down 31.3% to $10.2 million; and Special Bindings were down 3.5%, with $16.0 million in revenue.