The Press: The Quick & the Quick

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After Publisher Gardner ("Mike") Cowles folded pocket-size Quick last year, he quickly found a buyer for the magazine. The Philadelphia Inquirer's Publisher Walter Annenberg bought the title from Cowles for a reported $250,000, put out his own biweekly Quick in a larger format (TIME, July 20). Annenberg, who also publishes Seventeen, Daily Racing Form and Morning Telegraph, hoped to succeed where Mike Cowles failed by using his Inquirer gravure presses, selling no subscriptions or ads and sticking to newsstand sales. He estimated he could break even with 1,000,000 circulation. Last week Annenberg admitted defeat. After experimenting for nine months with the reborn Quick without ever putting out a good magazine, he folded it. Quick did not sell enough newsstand copies to make money, and the cost of getting ads and mail subscribers was too high.