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Dr. Mehmet Oz’s lifestyle magazine, Dr. Oz The Good Life, is ceasing print publication as the celebrity physician mounts a bid for a US Senate seat — and frankly, it’s about time, sources told The Post.
Oz’s publisher, Hearst Magazines, confirmed on Wednesday that it ended the nutrition-focused title once he announced last month he planned to run for the Senate in Pennsylvania, which is a standard course of action when a public figure runs for office.
But insiders also said that sales of the glossy had been slumping over the last few years and that ceasing its publication was a “convenient” way to end the business for Hearst.
“This was an excuse to kill it, in my opinion,” said a source with knowledge of the magazine’s sales.
Neither Hearst nor a rep for Oz commented.
“Dr. Oz’s magazine continued to be a successful endeavor, and opportunities were in discussion to find ways to expand its reach and branch off into other opportunities around it,” a source close to Oz countered, asking not to be identified and declining to clarify what the opportunities were.
“That changed with the announcement of Dr. Oz’s Senate run and the unfair advantage publication of such a magazine would present.”
Days after Oz announced his run for retiring US Sen. Pat Toomey’s seat late last month, Fox Station Group said it was yanking “The Dr. Oz Show” from New York and Pennsylvania. Earlier this week, series distributor Sony said that the show was ending its run next month after 13 seasons on the air.
But Oz’s magazine also has had a bumpy seven-year run at Hearst. In 2017, three years after it was launched, Hearst chopped its frequency from 10 times a year to quarterly. To make up for lagging ad sales, the magazine was transformed to a “bookazine,” or a heftier glossy, carrying the high cover price of $12.99 per issue, up from $3.99.
Slumping magazine sales aren’t just a condition suffered by Oz. According to Alliance for Audited Media, print circulations across the top 50 US magazines have fallen by 7 percent over the past two years to 116 million, while newsstand sales declined 11 percent to 2.8 million in the first half of this year.
Meanwhile, advertising revenue for US magazine publishers has fallen sharply in the past decade from $46 billion in 2007 to just over $26 billion in 2019, marking a 43 percent drop, according to data from Statista.
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