The Press: LIFE in the '60s

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"We know that the U.S. population will increase to well over 200 million," said LIFE'S Publisher Andrew Heiskell last week, looking toward the 1960s. "We expect real income to rise 4% per annum, with the result that an additional 6,000,000 families will have incomes of $5,000 or over." To keep pace with that national growth, LIFE (circ. base: 6,000,000) last week announced its plans for moving into the '60s.

LIFE'S program includes changes in "product, pricing and production." On the editorial side, said Editor in Chief Henry R. Luce, the LIFE of the '60s will be taking as its province "all things human, and revealing these things sometimes through the eye of highest scholarship, sometimes through the squint of humor, and always, we hope, through the eyes of the heart. In putting out this magazine, only our convictions must remain firm. All else—tradition, technique—are game for change."

Following extensive trial runs, LIFE, in a field generally marked by price increases, will cut its newsstand price from 25¢ to 19¢, effective June 1 on a nationwide basis, with correspondingly lower rates for subscriptions. To improve production, LIFE has joined its suppliers in a $60 million program that includes the opening this year of a new paper mill (owned jointly with Crown Zellerbach Corp.) in St. Francisville, La., a $6,000,000 research project at TIME Inc.'s Springdale (Conn.) laboratory to improve paper quality, new printing facilities in the East to speed distribution, and a new electronic system for handling subscription records.

With such changes, and with its projections of U.S. life in the '60s, LIFE plans to increase its circulation base to 6,500,000 next February and to hit the 7,000,000 mark while the 1960s are still young.