Sexy Sells: Top Celebrity Faces for Tabloid Sales

Oct. 4, 2007 Special to ABCNEWS.com — -- With newsstands heavy on celebrity titles, consumers often devote mere seconds to each before making their selection. Will it be "Angelina's Shrinking Waistline" or "Britney's Gone Bald"? Or perhaps another "Jen's Post-Pitt Hopeful" spread?

But who's the best bet? Jennifer Aniston, according to Forbes' first-ever analysis of the top-selling celebrity faces.

Check out the top-selling celebrity faces at our partner site, Forbes.com.

We looked at the newsstand sales of the six leading celebrity weeklies — People, Star, US Weekly, In Touch Weekly, Life & Style and OK! — over a six-month period ending June 30, as supplied by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. We eliminated all non-celebrity and collage covers as well as special issues with exceptionally large rate bases. Then we counted how many more — or less — issues the celebrity's cover sold, as compared with the magazine's average newsstand sales. Next, we factored in the number of full covers a celebrity graced. Finally, we ranked his or her consumer appeal using data from Encino, Calif.-based polling firm E-Poll Market Research to rule out flukes.

Aniston earned the top spot thanks to strong performances across the board. In addition to garnering a high appeal score of 36, making her the second-most-liked cover subject behind Sandra Bullock, she proved a success at the newsstand. Appearing on every title except In Touch at least once during the time period, her face collectively sold more than 5 million copies.

Just how important is a tabloid's cover model?

Incredibly, says Candace Trunzo, who took over as editor in chief of Star magazine in April. "Brand loyalty isn't what it used to be in terms of celebrity magazines," she explains. "Each week, people decide on what they are or aren't going to buy based on the cover, and if you don't draw them in with it, you lose that undecided portion of your audience."

Not to mention that publishers recoup up to 55% of a title's newsstand sales, according to John Harrington, a circulation analyst. Back of the envelope, that means Trunzo's Star earns about $1.27 million a week from single-copy sales. Each 10% bump over Star's recent 726,000 newsstand average means an additional $139,000. For industry titan People, with its 1.4 million newsstand readers, the decision is even more crucial — and potentially lucrative.