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| Kefauver Report publishing numbers |
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[Originally posted 3/29/2007]
JJM,
Thanks for the email response. Here's the follow-up on some of your questions for me...and my newer understanding of one of my questions:
The following list of dates and statistics are taken directly from the Kefauver Interim Report on Comic Books and Juvenile Delinquency, located at the following link: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8580/kefauver.html :
1940- 150 titles, 17 million copies monthly
1948- 34 publishers, 270 titles, 50 million copies monthly
1950- 300 titles (no sales estimate)
1953- 112 publishers, 650 titles, 68 million copies monthly
Tim Stroup clarified a couple of misrepresentations in the report for me, stipulating:
1. "Monthly" was not a standard distribution cycle, many titles only coming out around four times a year. I'm wondering, now, if they toook an annual sales figure and divided by three? Or if they asked for monthly, and publishers did their best to provide that info, or if they took the number from distributors...dunno.
2. "Publisher" was defined differently in the report (by today's standards, there were closer to 47 publishers).
And the numbers in the following were also from Kefauver:
"Average print run was estimated at 750,000 (with an estimated 300,000
minimum print run), but that certainly doesn't match up to the other
data...the average would have been 100,000, so maybe they were taking
the average from the top sellers?"
This question is solved when one takes into account that a good percentage of the comics were **not** monthly titles.
The numbers are all still pretty mushy when the monthly consideration is taken out of the equation, but they're at least getting closer to making sense.
My apologies for not formulating this post in a more accessible way. |
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| Re: Kefauver Report publishing numbers |
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[originally posted 3/29/2007]
That's OK -- I've been over the report several times over the years, and have long wanted to see it all in one place. I'm glad to see it all here.
My guess is that monthly copies is truly that, an aggregate of everything that came out. For comparison, we might note that at the peak of the boom in April 1993, our best projections are that there were 45 million comics sold to retailers. That's captured in a data set I have yet to post. But if true -- and if those earlier numbers hold -- we would be safe in saying that while 1993 yielded fewer copies, it was probably a bigger year in dollar terms, even adjusted for inflation. The most frequently suggested figure for 1993 overall is $850 million at full retail; taking that 1953 number, we'd be looking at $81.6 million. (This is not, of course, to get into the question of whether all those copies sold -- in either era!)
Best, John Jackson Miller • Curator, The Comics Chronicles |
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| Re: Kefauver Report publishing numbers |
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Apologies if this is old news.
Most of the annual revenue and monthly circulation figures quoted in the Kefauver Report have been calculated from the quoted number of titles using the following formula :-
n copies sold annually = n titles X (12+6)/2 X 300,000 / 2.
$ annual revenue = n copies sold annually / 10.
n copies sold monthly = n copies sold annually / 12.
The assumptions (from a footnote) :-
Half of the titles are monthly, rest are bimonthly.
Each issue has a print run of 300,000 copies.
Only half of the copies are sold.
Each copy costs 10 cents.
Comparison of formula against quoted values (figures in brackets are formula outputs which differ from quoted values) :-
1940: 150 titles, $20 million annual revenue, 17 million copies sold monthly
1948: 270 titles, 50 million (30)
1950: 300 titles, $41 million
1953: 650 titles, $90 million (88), 68 million (73)
1954: 676 titles, $90 million (91), 75 million (76)
The only significant discrepancy is the circulation for 1948. A different source may have been used.
The assumptions are claimed to be conservative, though the resulting issue and circulation counts are significantly higher than has been published elsewhere on this forum. |
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| Re: Kefauver Report publishing numbers |
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I didn't recall that footnote — will have to dig out the report again sometime. I printed mine from microfilm years ago for a report at the University of Tennessee (coincidentally, that's where the Kefauver Collection is, although I got the text from the general collection).
One concern I have is with the assumption that half the titles are monthly, and that the rest are bimonthly. This makes the multiplier too high by some margin, because there were plenty of quarterly titles — and then you have the matter that some titles were published within a year, but only at the cusp -- just the first or last issue or two.
This is somthing we can double-check, since we know (roughly) how many comics came out. The Standard Catalog estimates and Dan Stevenson's estimates are here. Taking Dan's higher figures, we find these averages:
1950: 2283 issues
1953: 2880 issues
1954: 2719 issues
If we take the title count at the report's word (this too can be checked, but let's run with it), then the issue count per title would be:
1950: 7.61
1953: 4.43
1954: 4.03
...far below 9, by that point. I would suspect looking at this that the title count estimates might be suspect — maybe they didn't understand that Four Color was one title, counting it as 52 different one-issue titles (which, to the layman, it would certainly appear to be).
In any event, I advise caution on that multiplier — 6,000 issues in 1953 and 1954 is twice the reality (the number of Golden Age issues undiscovered by Overstreet et al. being, at this point, pretty low). I think it's worth someone looking at those title counts, to see what they were really talking about.
Great post!
Best, John Jackson Miller • Curator, The Comics Chronicles |
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| Re: Kefauver Report publishing numbers |
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http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8580/kefauver.html
Comparing the Kefauver titles against the GCD for a few publishers :-
A significant proportion of Kefauver titles are annuals or one-shots. Also, the majority of titles are bimonthly and quarterly, rather than monthly.
This is clear in the entry for Dell, where the titles have been sorted into monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, semi-annual and annual classes. Yet Kefauver simply totalled the entire set.
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| Re: Kefauver Report publishing numbers |
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Thanks for all the links!
I keep telling myself one of these days I'll go back to U.T. and see if there are any artifacts in the Kefauver collection — but I'm not sure ther would be. I'd have to assume that apart from his personal letters, the subcommittee stuff would have stayed with the committee.
Best, John Jackson Miller • Curator, The Comics Chronicles |
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