Trouble for Picture Post

When London's weekly Picture Post came out in 1938, it was something new in British journalism and a spectacular success. The first day the Life-modeled magazine went on the stands, the press run of 750,000 copies was sold out before noon. Within six months its circulation soared to more than 1,600,000. Under Editor Tom Hopkinson, Picture Post became a valuable property in Publisher Edward Hulton's* chain (Lilliput, Farmers Weekly, Housewife). Hopkinson skillfully blended sex, crime and sports features with campaigns against appeasement of Hitler and British unemployment. During World War II, Picture Post's picture coverage was Britain's best, and after the war it was responsible for such exposes as the government's blundering in the "groundnut scheme" in Africa (TiME, Nov. 14, 1949).

But in 1950 Publisher Hulton ran into trouble. His erratic ideas for Picture Post were frequently at odds with Hopkinson's shrewd journalistic thinking. Moreover, the political views of Hopkinson, a far left-winger (though no Communist), were too strong for Conservative Hulton's taste. Their scrapping broke into the open after the Korean war began, when Hopkinson tried to run pictures showing South Koreans mistreating prisoners. Hulton fired him and marched in a succession of less talented editors who never struck Hopkinson's artful balance between popular picture features and solid-text pieces. Circulation dipped to 935,829, while Picture Post's rival, the Illustrated London News, climbed ahead to 1,190,041. Fleet Streeters began to keep a death watch on Picture Post.

Fortnight ago, Hulton Press reported that its earnings for 1951 had dropped from $895,000 to a meager $54,000 as a result of "heavy losses" on Picture Post "in particular." To put the once-robust magazine on its feet, the board named Hulton's Joint General Manager John W. Pearce, 38, as boss, and gave him a free hand to take drastic action. He did. Pearce slashed the price from sixpence to fourpence, the same as Illustrated, and guaranteed advertisers a circulation of 1,000,000 or better. If Picture Post failed to meet its guarantee, Pearce -announced, advertisers would get a prorata rebate. To further reassure them, he promised a report every week.

Last week, after two weeks of the Pearce treatment, Pearce sent out his first circulation report to advertisers. Total readers: 1,065,000. Said he: "If we actually have to pay a rebate to advertisers, it would be cheaper to throw the magazine away."

-Son of the late Sir Edward Hulton, who, before he sold out to Lord Rothermere in 1923, owned one of the biggest chains of newspapers in Britain (Evening Standard, Daily Sketch, Sunday Chronicle, Sunday Times, etc.).

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