Publisher’s Letter, Oct. 3, 1955

Dear TIME-Reader: FOR several years we have been studying new ways to improve our delivery service to those of you who get your copies of TIME from newsstands. You may be interested to learn that recently we started distributing our magazine through 734 wholesalers who are independent businessmen in cities and towns throughout the U.S.

and Canada. To do so, we joined the S—M News Co., an organization already set up to handle the relationship between member publishers and independent wholesalers, thus ending our contract with a national distributor, the American News Co.

Established in 1919, S—M was one of the first publisher-owned agencies for the distribution of magazines to newsstands. It was started by the Popular Science Publishing Co., Inc. and the Mc-Call Corp. The S—M stands for Science and McCall, and this name has not been changed even though the Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., Meredith Publishing Co. and Street & Smith Publications, Inc. have since joined the organization.

To effect the switch, which had, of course, to be accomplished in one week, the staff of our Chicago traffic department worked seven weeks on such preliminary steps as making new address plates for the independent wholesalers and changing dispatch schedules and routings on truck, rail and air lines. When switchover week came, our magazines were sent in 2,200 shipments to the wholesalers for distribution to some 100,000 newsstands. W. A. Rogers, president of S—M, which had never before handled weekly magazines, called the switch “miraculous.” Said TIME’S traffic manager, W. A. Evans: “We’ve had a lot of practice and it would have looked pretty bad if we had muffed it.” TIME’S President Roy Larsen said: “This move should make possible further progress in the area of efficient distribution and merchandising of our magazines.” At S —M’s annual convention in Portsmouth, N.H., I was pleased to hear the reports of real progress which were already coming in.

Cordially yours,