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February 27, 2009

Jade Goody’s wedding deal pays off for OK magazine

By Owen Amos

This week’s OK magazine, featuring exclusive coverage of reality TV star Jade Goody’s wedding, is set to sell two million copies, its editorial director has told Press Gazette.

It makes the £700,000 the Northern and Shell-owned title spent on the rights seem like the investment of the year.

OK’s average circulation, according to ABC, is 508,504.

If this week’s magazine, which was published on Tuesday and costs £2.95, sells two million copies, it will generate an extra £4.4m in sales revenue.

OK editorial director Paul Ashford told Press Gazette: “This week is not finished, so any current figures are estimates based on samples – but it looks like it [will sell two million]”.

The extra sales will give a boost to the title which, according to ABC, reported a 25.6 per cent year-on-year circulation drop in the second half of 2008.

Goody, who has terminal cancer, sold her wedding rights – in her own words – to “make as much money as possible for her sons”.

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Living TV – which already had a documentary deal with Goody – will brodcast the wedding over two nights, on 11 March and 12 March.

OK is owned by Northern and Shell which also publishes the Express and the Star newspapers.

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