“Fifty percent of the distribution market just evaporated”

Troubled times in the USA magazine market. A few weeks ago, publishers rebelled against a 7% hike in prices from two of the country’s biggest magazine distributors. Today, the distributors have reacted by… well, according to some reports, by stopping doing any distribution. Ever again.

Jim Gillis, the head of one of the two companies, Source Interlink, denies his firm is quitting distribution, but he will be dropping all the magazines from those clients he couldn’t get an agreement with.

“I’m shipping magazines,” Gillis said. “And my retailers are not accepting product from anyone but me. So I don’t know what Anderson and News Group are doing and I don’t really give a sh*t. In my footprint, nobody is delivering magazines but me. So that means that AMI, Curtis, Bauer and Time Warner are out.”

The other company involved, Anderson News, has yet to comment. There’s going to be some market adjustment on this one, and how. FOLIO is all over the story, which continues to change as more news comes in.