Abstract:

A publisher sold two weekly magazines whose editorial content was different and whose readers were supposedly different both sociologically and psychologically. But economically it was no longer possible to continue publishing the two magazines separately. The question was to examine whether and in what way the two magazines could be merged while at the same time retaining the maximum number of readers of the two magazines and also having the best chance of expanding the readership in the future. A two stage study was conducted. As a result of this research we were able to make specific recommendations on how the two magazines should he merged and even to make detailed suggestions about the type and style of the editorial content of the combined magazine. Since then the two magazines have been successfully merged and we understand that both the circulation and the readership of the new publications is greater than that of the two original publications combined.