Word: second-class
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...effect on individual publications would be uneven. The new second-class rates are set by the piece in a complicated formula that takes into account mailing distance as well as weight. Weeklies would be hit harder than monthlies because of greater mailing frequency, and large-circulation weeklies would be hit harder still because of their great volume. Time Inc., as the nation's largest magazine publisher (TIME, LIFE, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, FORTUNE), would suffer the biggest second-class boost of all-from $15.4 million to $42.4 million, based on 1970 circulation levels. That increase of $27 million substantially exceeds what...
...main distribution channel for most of the publications. In setting up the service as successor to the Federal Post Office Department, whose deficits were met from Government funds, Congress required that mailing charges should cover most postal costs. The service translated this into a request for a boost in second-class material (magazines and newspapers) that would average about 150% over five years, or 30% annually...
...Postal Service contends that second-class rates have been artificially low for decades and that magazine mailers must pay both direct cost and a share of the service's general overhead. Magazine publishers are willing to pay more; LIFE in August proposed 60% over five years. But the industry argues that the proposed new rates are grossly unfair because they do not take into account the ease with which magazines can be handled; many are now presorted and sacked, requiring only minimal processing by postal employees. The publishers contend therefore that too high a proportion of Postal Service overhead...
...second-class rates go through approximately as proposed, profits are sure to fall rather than rise -disastrously in some cases. The industry's search for more efficient operating techniques has been stepped up, but most publishers had already made drastic economies even before the postal increase was proposed. Other distribution systems are under study to reduce or eliminate the postage cost, including the servicing of subscriptions with coupons redeemable for magazines at newsstands. But such schemes so far seem both clumsy and prohibitively expensive...
...Since World War II, no annual second-class increase had exceeded 14%. The average yearly increase...