All but Metal/Center News are entered as Second Class. Metal/Center News is Control. Our total postal bill for 1972 was in excess of $2 million. About 62 per cent of that figure was for the delivery of our Second Class newspapers and magazines to the more than one million readers across the country and throughout the world. Hence, our keen interest in Second Class service and rates and the efficiency of the Postal Service. There is no present substitute for its universality. We at Fairchild have gone to great lengths to cooperate with the U. S. Postal Service to effect faster, more dependable deliveries of our time-value newspapers. We transport them, mostly by air, to 56 alternate entry points at a cost of $750,000 per year. We pre-sort and bag all publication mail to the finest separations allowed. Last year, about 59 per cent of all Fairchild publications moved in five digit direct bags, by-passing about 75 per cent of the normal handlings. We consider the element of service a joint responsibility of the USPS and Fairchild. Business publications represent a singular network of communications to industry and commerce. In the case of Fairchild, our dailies and weeklies serve basic industries in our economy, including those in food, clothing and shelter. Prompt business intelligence keeps them efficient and competitive and in turn keeps our economy healthy. Small business is understandably dependent on such economical sources of information. They cannot afford to avail themselves of the more sophisticated advisory services. Their business press gives them an equal footing with giant competitors. For these reasons, we believe it is truly in the public interest to keep subscription prices within reach of all businessmen large and small. While we cannot reasonably object to gradually higher postal rates, we do argue that excessive and frequent increases will force subscription prices beyond the reach of small business in particular. In studies made before the current cycle of rate and subscription price increases, we found that more than half of our paid subscribers were classed as "small business," as measured by their sales volume. we, So, when postal rate increases were indicated early in 1971, like many publishers, planned subscription price increases during that year. Of the seven Fairchild publications, subscription prices were increased on six. Losses in circulation ensued on all six (comparing year-end figures of 1972 against 1970) while the circulation on the one publication not increased showed a modest gain in paid circulation. The overall loss on the six comparable publications was a substantial 11 per cent of the circulation. The lagging economy might have had some effect, but the sharpness of the drop and the fact that there was no loss on the one paper with no price increase leaves an inescapable conclusion: Unwise subscription price increases (at the wrong time or rate) force cancellations and deny the service to former readers, especially small business. This is contrary to the public interest. In hearings before a House committee last June, two well-known publishers were asked if they couldn't pass on higher postal rates in higher subscription prices? Andrew Heiskell, chairman of Time, Inc., and William F. Kerby, president of Dow-Jones & Company, both replied that in their judgment, it could not be done without curtailing circulation. Our experience proves it. In better times or in smaller doses, necessary increases in costs or postal rates can be absorbed. But if the increases provided in the present phasing schedule, plus the additional increases projected by USPS during that period, must all be imposed in the next four or five years, the results could be disastrous for many publishers. Even hopes for early economies from postal modernization and mechanization are unlikely. Postmaster General Klassen testified before the House sub-committees that the vaunted 21 Bulk mail facilities will not be operational until 1975. The 181 Preferential mail processing centers are still in the planning stage. Electronic equipment for these centers, which is expected to save $1 billion in processing costs, is still being tested. Final approval may await some field experience on the bulk centers and then it will take six years to fully implement the new system. That pegs substantial benefits from the Pref and Bulk system to some time after 1980. Against this broad background, it seems only reasonable that the ten-year phasing and other provisions of S-411 (the McGee bill) and S-842 (the Kennedy-Goldwater bill) should recommend these to your committee and Congress. They dovetail in timing with the expected economies of postal modernization, cushion the impact on publishers and their subscribers, and yield special attention for small publishers and the continued vigor of a free press. We also hope you give serious thought to the provision in S-630 (Nelson bill) which would outlaw the per-piece charge as part of rate design. It seriously discriminates against small and light-weight publications. We strongly recommend your approval of S-842 and S-411. April 4, 1973 Statement of The Authors League of America, before the United States Senate on S.842 and S. 1404 Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: My name is Irwin Karp. I am counsel to The Authors League of America and its member organizations, The Authors Guild and The Dramatists Guild. The Authors League is a national society of professional writers many of whom publish articles, stories and poetry in magazines. The League and its member Guilds submit this statement in support of the Bills introduced by Senators Kennedy and Goldwater and their distinguished cosponsors, and by Senator Humphrey, to preserve the existence of periodicals threatened by the increases in second-class postal rates. We ask that this statement be included in the record of the Committee's hearings. The Authors League believes that the second-class rate increases ordered by the Postal Service pose one of the gravest threats to freedom of communication ever faced by this country. Unless legislation is passed to cut back the increases, many small periodicals will be forced to follow LOOK and LIFE magazines down the road to oblivion. All of us -- authors, readers and the public at large will suffer an irreparable loss. To prevent this, Congress must provide lower rates for smaller periodicals, extend the period of adjustment and limit to 50% the cost burden of future increases on non-profit and regular rate second-class periodicals. Naturally, authors' organizations are concerned because the destruction of periodicals will harm many of their individual members; writing for magazines is a primary source of income for many authors. However, The Authors League also is concerned for other reasons. Small periodicals, which earn no profit and often operate at a loss, publish the great preponderance of work by scholars, scientists, historians, engineers, poets, economists and critics. Only periodicals can bring this invaluable material to the public. Now, as in the past, much of the best contemporary literature is published in the very magazines which would be the first victims of the proposed rate increases. These are published in every part of the country. As authors, readers and members of the public we are also concerned with preserving the second class mails as the channel of communication most essential to the system of free expression envisioned by the First Amendment as the keystone of our democratic society. "Public discussion is a public duty" said Justice Brandeis. And the maintenance of the opportunity" for 93-910 073-13 |