Instead of six or eight minutes on the nightly news, coverage is down to perhaps 90 seconds or so. Instead of front-page blowouts, the stories have dwindled to one or two, often inside the paper.
Slowly, as the American media say their own goodbyes to Princess Diana, the appearance of media normalcy is taking shape.
That is not the case in many supermarkets, though, where the familiar racks at the checkout counter displaying the National Enquirer, Star and the Globe–the three biggest weekly tabloids, each of which has thrived on the life of Diana–remain empty.
“At this point, we’re not sure if they’ll be back. This could be permanent. It could be temporary,” said Karen Ramos, director of public relations for Jewel-Osco, which operates about 170 stores in the Chicago area.
The same is true at Dominick’s, with 86 groceries and 17 Omni stores in the Chicago area. “We have no plans to return them for at least the next couple of weeks, until we can see exactly where the media are going with the story and the pictures,” said Cory Hedman, Dominick’s director of public affairs.
The removal of the tabloids to another, less-conspicuous location in the stores came at the height of the public backlash against the paparazzi, the free-lance photographers who reportedly were chasing Diana on their motorcycles before the fatal crash.
The tabloids’ continued absence from their high-profile racks one week after Diana’s funeral–as the media move on to other events–suggests a longer-term commercial sensitivity toward publications known for their insensitivity. It would be difficult for many to imagine a future of standing in a grocery line without glancing at the tabloids, but, as Ramos said, “this whole tragedy has raised a lot of concerns.”
This is probably not what the tabloids need to hear right now. Circulation at the Enquirer, the largest U.S. tabloid, has dropped 16 percent in the past three years, according to the Schaumburg-based Audit Bureau of Circulations. Circulation at its sister publication, Star, the second-largest, has fallen 21 percent over the same time period. The third-ranked Globe’s circulation is up by about 7 percent, but that is one of the few bright spots in the rapidly expanding guerrilla war of tabloid journalism.
Steve Coz, editor of the Enquirer, declined to be interviewed for this report, as did Dan Schwartz, editorial director at the Globe.
It is too soon to judge whether the death of Princess Diana will produce long-term negative economic effects on the tabloid business, or if there will be any damage at all. “In fact, you may actually see heightened revenue because people will be going for additional stories,” said Fred Wray, president of the New York-based media buyer TN Media.
That is arguably the most glaring contradiction from the event. Amid all the public anger and journalistic hand-wringing over the privacy implications of saturation celebrity coverage, there nevertheless is an almost insatiable demand for stories and photos of certain famous individuals. Indeed, mainstream publications like Newsweek and People magazine are cashing in by publishing special collector’s issues on Princess Diana.
The tabloids, naturally, printed Diana memorial issues as well, but they elected to tread softly. Because they pay sometimes huge sums for celebrity photographs and stories, the tabloids are bearing the brunt of current outrage over the media’s hounding of the unfortunate princess and, by extension, all celebrities.
In their Sept. 16 issues on Diana, the Enquirer, Star and the Globe were models of discretion in content and presentation. The Enquirer’s special edition was rushed after some grocery chains pulled the Sept. 9 issue, released before Diana’s death, which carried a “Di’s Sex Life” headline.
How long this circumspection will last is anybody’s guess. What’s sure is the editors’ decisions to back off or aggressively pursue stories–and celebrities–won’t be driven by the dictates and whims of big mainstream advertisers afraid of offending customers. Compared with weekly magazines, tabloids have little advertising.
Although the Enquirer and Star have some big name advertisers, such as cigarette companies and food producers, most tabloid advertising revenue comes from psychics and small, direct-mail merchandisers. The lifeblood comes from readers, who make up more than 8 out of every 10 dollars in revenue by plunking down $2.49 every week for the latest issue.
“There will always be tabloids. There were probably tabloids back in Plato’s time. People just like sensationalism,” said Bishop Cheen, an analyst at First Union Capital Markets, in Charlotte, N.C., who follows American Media Inc., the Enquirer’s corporate parent.
“The death knell for the tabloid has been sounded so many times you can’t take it seriously anymore. The puritans say it is over, but they have been saying that for 25 years,” he said.
But the tabloid market has been changing in recent years. The threat resulting from backlash over the paparazzi’s obsession with Diana pales next to the more fundamental problem of an increasingly crowded tabloid arena. That has carved up the audience into smaller segments.
The declining circulation of the tabloids is misleading because it suggests the public is losing its taste for celebrity gossip. Far from it. The market for so-called tabloid news has been growing, particularly through television talk shows and news magazines.
Advertising demand for these shows is very strong, said Bob Brennan, executive vice president and U.S. media director at Leo Burnett Co.
“There is high demand for these programs, and I don’t see it going away unless there is a big consumer backlash,” Brennan said.
Is there evidence of a backlash developing? “No,” said Brennan.
The ratings, though, show the same kind of audience fragmentation in tabloid TV as tabloid papers are experiencing–the proliferation of programs has cut down the audience size of the individual shows. Ratings for some of the more popular national talk shows–for Oprah, Jenny Jones, Sally Jessy Raphael, Maury Povich, Ricki Lake and Geraldo–have dropped in the past three years, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Yet Nielsen’s index of nationally syndicated talk shows during the 1994-95 television season contained 14 talk shows, airing Monday through Friday. By the 1996-97 season the number of shows had grown to 24.
The same thing has happened to TV news magazines. The Nielsen ratings of nearly all news magazine shows–“60 Minutes,” “20/20,” “Prime Time Live,” and the syndicated magazines “Hard Copy,” “Inside Edition” and “A Current Affair”–have dropped in the past three seasons.
In the 1994-95 season there were 12 news magazines in the Nielsen index; in the 1996-97 season there were 18, a 50 percent increase.
“The market is fragmenting like crazy,” said Cheen. “The same ilk that buys the Enquirer and Star is fragmented in terms of television. It’s like the old Woody Allen line: No matter how jaded you are, it’s hard to keep up.”
Harder, still, to compete. In response to changes in the tabloid market, Lantana, Fla.-based American Media, the Enquirer’s owner, has diversified its holdings. It now also publishes Star, Soap Opera Magazine, Soap Opera News, Weekly World News and Country Weekly. This is a common strategy that many media companies have followed in an attempt to pick up different pieces of their fractured markets.
Although not all of the players in the crowded tabloid field can thrive, there are no signs the public appetite for tabloid fare is flagging. Tabloid content maintains a strong appeal to human nature.
“There is a long-standing aspect of American behavior that they satisfy, demystifying and stripping away the veneer of the rich and famous,” said Jim Flanery, the Roger Tartarian endowed chair in journalism at California State University Fresno.
“Despite protestations that we are a classless society, there are a lot of frustrated people who want to see the photos of a swollen-faced Elizabeth Taylor, a ghastly looking Liza Minnelli and a thick-thighed Goldie Hawn. . . . The tabloids allow people to say `See? They’re no better than I am.’ “
