Entertainment diverts us from the harshness of real life

There is a reason why smut and entertainment magazines sell well. Like an illicit drug or skydiving or watching a theatre play, they allow us to escape the hardness of everyday life. Wal-Mart, which sells the majority of many magazines for several publishers, will see popular titles like Sports Illustrated, People, Time and gossip publications like National Enquirer dropped from the shelves of its U.S. locations, according to The New York Post. Why, you say? A war between Wal-Mart, magazine publishers and magazine wholesalers, that's why.

As of this week, the publications referenced above and many more may become conspicuously absent from the shelves of Wal-Mart's 4,200 U.S. locations. The problem is this: national magazine wholesalers Anderson News and Interlink Cos. instituted a $0.07 surcharge on many popular magazine publications as of this week -- costs that the publishers did not want to ingest nor push onto their already cash-strapped consumers.

With some of the larger publishers like Time, Inc. and Bauer not agreeing to pay the surcharges to the wholesalers who distribute those publications to retail, both parties are sitting idle waiting for the other to make a move. Meanwhile, magazine shelves and impulse aisles at possibly 4,200 Wal-Mart locations will not see stock replenished. Oh no -- what will we do without our gossip fixes?

Wal-Mart's power -- where is it here?

But the consumer will blame one party in this mess -- Wal-Mart. No matter how the retailer explains the standoff to consumers in its stores, the fact remains that Wal-Mart won't sell these popular magazine titles will be the taste left on the tongue of millions of weekly magazine shoppers in its stores.

It's amazing that the world's largest retailer has not stepped in to try and solve this issue with the publishers and distributors of these popular titles. Will customers go out of their way to find another non-Wal-Mart location to buy these titles once they find bare shelves at the local Wal-Mart? Many will -- but many won't. The whole point of shopping at a Wal-Mart location is to buy anything and everything possible under one roof in one trip. And, with the lowest prices possible.

Wal-Mart did indicate that it was on the side of the wholesalers, not the publishers. Publisher Time indicated that it has already been seeking alternative distribution methods, growing its wholesale partnership with those companies outside the ones imposing the new per-copy $0.07 surcharge.

What's next for publishing

It's no doubt that the publishers of some of the most popular weekly celebrity magazine titles will have a solution in place soon. It wouldn't be unrealistic to see them ship directly to Wal-Mart distribution centers and bypass wholesalers completely at some point if this bickering nonsense can't find a resolution. At the same time, Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) unveiled version 2 of its Kindle electronic reader today.

The $359 device was designed to be a digital replacement for the newspaper (and other regularly-updated print content), and even has a screen meant to look like paper itself. Add in free wireless access to over-the-air content updating on an hourly or daily basis, and physical media like newspapers and magazines could start seeing fast declines in purchasing.

But that won't change overnight. If you're reading celebrity trash and gossip on a weekly basis, my guess is that you're not in the market for a $359 device in the first place -- even with the benefit of constant updates and new information streamed right into your hands. Until a device like the Amazon Kindle is cheap enough to get into the hands of the masses, weekly magazines will continue to sell, albeit at a slower rate based on internet website cannibalization.

Join me right here next week for another edition of the Wal-Mart Weekly. Stay safe out there.