 |
Media struggles to meet demand for news about Diana
In this story:
September 3, 1997
Web posted at: 10:04 p.m. EDT (0204 GMT)NEW YORK (CNN) -- Ask for this week's Time or Newsweek magazines at many newsstands in New York, and you get the same answer:
"Sold out, sorry."
That's because Princess Diana is on the cover.
"Everybody asks me about the Diana magazines," says another magazine seller.
It's not much easier to find Diana titles in the bookstores.
CNN's Mary Ann McGann reports
"The bookstores just saw an incredible demand the minute the news hit," says Judy Quinn of Publishers Weekly. "Any books that had Diana on the cover flew out of the stores. And, really, they're waiting for more inventory, which is what the publishers are doing. Anyone who had a significant Diana title is going back to press and pretty significantly."
Booksellers, publishers and television networks are rushing to satisfy the clamor for anything and everything on Diana's life and death.
Ratings for broadcast and cable networks soared as each scrambled to bring word of the fatal car crash, as did the demand for online news. On Tuesday, CNN's Web site had a record 10.1 million page views, 40 percent higher than the previous record of 7.1 million page views set last week.
No commercials during funeral, networks say
Despite the opportunity to rake in big advertising dollars, most of the major networks say they will run no commercials during their live coverage of Princess Diana's funeral on Saturday, reflecting the somberness of the occasion.
Book publishers seem to be taking note as well. None appear willing to rush to press with those instant tales of tragedy. But they're not shying away from the subject altogether.
"There's been proposals circulating," Quinn said, "but I have to say a lot of publishers are a little wary of this. They don't want to come across as too exploitive."
Exploitation was on the minds of grocery store chains like Kroger, Safeway and Winn-Dixie this week when they announced that they would ban any tabloids carrying pictures of the crash scene in which Princess Diana died.
"We have had such an outpouring of concern and real anxiety from our customers and others that we decided to focus on the one part of this event that would probably offend everyone," said Paul Bernish, a spokesman for the Cincinnati-based Kroger chain. "That would be those kinds of photographs."
Leading U.S. tabloids, including The National Enquirer, The Globe and The Star, have vowed not to run pictures of the crash scene. But fear that grisly photographs will still turn up somewhere has raised a public outcry far louder than anything the tabloids faced in their coverage of such deaths as those of Nicole Brown Simpson or JonBenet Ramsey.
Even before the tabloids could get to press with their coverage of Princess Diana's death, Safeway supermarkets in the United States and Canada began removing copies of The Enquirer and The Star from their shelves.
They also pulled the current issue of The Enquirer, dated September 9, from their racks because of an article headlined, "Di Goes Sex Mad; 'It's the Best I've Ever Had," which was illustrated with color photographs of the princess and her Egyptian companion, Dodi Al Fayed, at the beach.
Supermarkets also removed issues of The Star that featured an article about "Di's New Loveboat Cruise," while The Globe got the ax in other stores because of the headline "To Di For! A new swimsuit every day so lover Dodi won't stray."
Magazine editors, meanwhile, are working frantically to get special editions with more palatable fare out on the newsstands.
In fact, The New Yorker's special tribute will be available in New York, Los Angeles, London and other major cities on Friday, three days before it usually hits the newsstands. That's a first in the magazine's 72-year history.
So even as Princess Diana's face sold millions of magazines and books and newspapers while she lived, she is proving to be just as profitable to those responding to the public's hunger to know more about her in death.
Correspondent Mary Ann McGann and Reuters contributed to this report.
Related Stories and Sites
|
Sound off on our message boards
You said it... |
|
© 1997 Cable News Network, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.