Desmond halves price of OK! to 99p

By John Reynolds, mediaweek.co.uk, Wednesday, 14 March 2012 10:54AM

Richard Desmond's Northern & Shell is halving the cover price of its flagship celebrity magazine OK! to 99p, as it continues its strategy of price cuts across selected titles.

The move by Desmond means that OK! will sell for half the price of Hello magazine, priced at £2.

The 99p priced OK! is now on sale in newsagents. Hello is thought to have no plans to cut its own cover price.

A spokesperson for the National Federation of Retail Newsagents (NFRN), the trade body for independent newsagents, said she believed the slashing of the OK! cover price is likely to be long-term.

OK! suffered a double-digit year-on-year fall in the latest round of circulations figures.

In the final six months of 2011, OK! registered an average weekly circulation of 388,472, down 13.9% on the year, and down 17.9% on the period.

By comparison, Hello! reported an average weekly circulation of 373,266, down 8% on the year, and down 9.7% on the period.

The price-slashing of OK! mirrors a similar move by Desmond's Sunday tabloid newspaper, which has halved its cover price from £1 to 50p.

Desmond slashed the price of the Daily Star Sunday to match the arrival of Rupert Murdoch's 50p Daily Star Sunday.

Northern & Shell said: "With some great exclusive wedding issues coming up and the commemorative issues for the Royal anniversaries in April and June we are looking at an outstanding year."

 

This article was first published on mediaweek.co.uk