Oprah loses millions in ad sales for 'O' magazine

theGRIO REPORT - According to a new report, 'O, The Oprah Magazine' is down millions of dollars in advertising sales in comparison to last year...

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Just when we thought things were beginning to look up for Oprah Winfrey, her highly successful magazine takes a fall. According to a new report, O, The Oprah Magazine is down millions of dollars in advertising sales in comparison to last year.

The Association of Magazine Media reports that ad sale revenue for O, The Oprah Magazine was $48.8 million in 2011. However, this year ad sales are at a low of $34.2 million, which translates to a decrease of 24.1 percent. The magazine’s newsstand sales have also been declining as of late.

According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, in the second half of 2011, sales declined by a whopping 32 percent, while on average the decline in other major magazines was merely 10 percent.

Just last month, Oprah’s struggling television network, OWN, announced that they were be laying off one-fifth of their workers and “restructuring the way they operate.”

Winfrey said the decision was a “tough” one, but the economics of a start-up cable channel didn’t fit with OWN’s cost structure. In March the ‘Queen of Talk’ also pulled the plug on The Rosie Show, Rosie O’Donnell’s nightly talk show, due to low ratings.

No word yet as to whether O, The Oprah Magazine will be doing any layoffs in the near future.

Follow Chris Witherspoon on Twitter at @WitherspoonC

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