Every time that I see a headline about how much some magazine has spent - usually the GDP of a small country - acquiring the exclusive rights to celebrity baby photos, I have a little moment of combined revulsion and surprise. Revulsion, because, well, how many children could you feed with that money? And surprise because - WHY? Does six million dollars - the amount rumored to have been spent on J-Lo's baby pics - actually translate into increased revenue for a magazine? Do babies on covers really move that much product?
Apparently, yes. But that's not the whole story.
According to a story at Jossip, mags with babies on the cover do sell more issues, but the real money comes from selling international rights. They say, “Magazines who buy exclusive pics often re-sell the
international rights to another publication, off-setting their own
costs. That’s what People did with Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony’s baby pics.”
Which, you know, doesn't address the revulsion issue (especially if those celebs just pocket the money, instead of giving some or all of it to charity, as Brangelina did. You can build a whole lot of orphanges with the kind of money that gets tossed around for baby pics), but it does explain a little more about why People and Us Weekly even bother.
$$$ makes $$$$$$$.
