For fans of Jade Goody, OK! Magazine has been the ultimate source of information about the reality television star’s battle with terminal cancer.
However, the celebrity magazine made a huge misjudgement after publishing a ‘tribute’ edition that was billed as containing the “final words” of the 27-year-old former Big Brother contestant, two weeks before she died. OK! adopted the Jade Goody saga to stem huge losses in readership.
The magazine had posted a 25 per cent drop in circulation for the last six months of 2008, with average sales of 500,000. The magazine turned its figures around with the recent exclusive of Goody’s wedding, which is thought to have achieved sales in the region of two million copies. Both parties achieved their goals from the deal; Goody was able to achieve financial security for her two young sons, which was an admirable and clever move, and OK! got its highest ever sales for an issue.
However, in their haste to continue the level of sales, the publishers then rushed the “official tribute issue”, which was clearly an obituary to the then still living star – and in so doing the publication may have signed its own death warrant.
Instead of sales, all the magazine has achieved is a label of bad taste. Fans who saw the publishing house as a support to Jade in her efforts to raise her sons inheritance before she died, now see the magazine publishers as insensitive and greedy. It would have been more prudent of the magazine to take a hit on a less popular celeb story, rather than take the gamble on such a sensitive matter. Their haste has now pushed them back behind the starting line again.