A class-action lawsuit, filed Friday, alleges that The Hearst Corp., Primedia Inc., Time Inc., and nine other publishers have conspired to inflate magazine subscription prices.
According to a news report, the suit claims that the publishers and their trade group, the Magazine Publishers of America, secretly agreed not to discount magazine subscription prices by more than 50%. The was filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on behalf of readers who subscribed to any number of magazines over the last four years.
The report said that millions of readers could have reaped even great discounts were it not for the illegal conspiracy aimed at subscribers to such leading magazines as TV Guide, Time, and Seventeen.
“The prices paid by American magazine subscribers have been inflated by a pervasive and systematic conspiracy designed to artificially limit the discounting of magazine subscription prices,” the complaint read.
Besides Hearst, publisher of Cosmopolitan and Esquire, and Primedia, whose portfolio lists Seventeen and New York, other companies targeted in the suit include Time Inc., a unit of Time Warner Inc., Conde Nast Publications Inc., TV Guide Inc., and the Reader’s Digest Association Inc.
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