National Enquirer publisher acquires OK!

Joe Pompeo
·Media Reporter

American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer, Star, Radar Online and a slew of fitness magazines, has agreed to buy the U.S. edition of celebrity rag OK!.

"OK! magazine is a very important strategic acquisition for AMI, as it increases our market share in newsstand unit sales from 30% to 36%," American Media Chief Executive David Pecker said in a statement. "It also allows us to offer our advertisers a wider range of celebrity coverage than any single publication or group of titles from any publisher."

News of the deal was first reported Thursday by Forbes' Jeff Bercovici.

AMI acquires the title from U.K. publisher Northern & Shell, which imported OK! to American supermarket checkouts in 2005. A previous bid by Time Inc. was unsuccessful.

The Wall Street Journal's Russell Adams notes:

AMI executives said the acquisition, terms of which were not disclosed, will help the publisher better compete with the leading celebrity titles for advertising because it adds OK! and its relatively young audience to a roster of celebrity-focused properties that includes Star and RadarOnline.com. OK! and Star have a combined circulation of about 1.7 million, just below the nearly two million copies a week for Wenner Media's US Weekly, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

AMI, which recently emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is reportedly shopping itself around. Private equity firm Apollo Management was said to be one potential buyer.