America Doesn't Care How Kate Tamed Owen
Oct. 27 2008, Published 7:07 a.m. ET
BLONDE BOMB Star
Americans can't get enough of those bed-hopping celebrities—unless the celebrities in question are Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson. The Nov. 6 issue of Star magazine, which just went off-sale, was the tabloid's worst seller of all time, moving a mere 545,000 copies on the newsstand, according to a source with access to circulation data. Its cover line: "How Kate Tamed Owen!"
A typical issue of Star sells around 750,000 single copies. A spokeswoman for the magazine said the 545,000 figure was inaccurate, but declined to specify by how much.
Like her counterpart at Us Weekly, Star editorial director Bonnie Fuller has been pushing her staff to come up with new cover options, worried that the usual rotation of Angelina, Jen, and Jessica is losing its potency. But apparently last week's bomb has scared the experimentation out of her: In the new issue, Star returns to the same stale trough.
But while Star may be shedding newsstand readers, it's also reducing its overhead. The magazine recently cut its trim size by about one-eighth of an inch, a change that will result in savings of around $2 million a year, according to a publishing source.
