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Boarding a train into Manhattan on Monday night, I found myself in a seat (rare in itself) across from an Oxford-wearing twenty-something engrossed in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth tale in the series, released just last week in theaters. Aside from checking the stops occasionally, he never looked up from his book.

Shortly later I transferred trains; a woman, maybe 50, sat down across from me. She too pulled out a book -- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Potter's third book.

Potter's ubiquity reminds this Muggle of critic Chuck Klosterman's notes on the death of Johnny Carson and the popular notion that there could never be another Carson, who in his day had such a wide and total grasp on the nation. Klosterman argued that of course there could be another Carson, except that through the fragmenting and stratification of popular culture -- augured by the niche channels of cable television, taken to extremes by the internet -- we have instead chosen to retreat into cultural cliques, limiting common experience to -- what? Devastating acts of terror, I guess.

As I recall, Outkast's massive 2003 hit song "Hey Ya!" was the closest thing Klosterman could propose as a unifying cultural force (not without his reservations), but he might have overlooked J.K. Rowling's little wizard. Who since maybe The Beatles has met this sort of worldwide fanfare with each new offering? Publisher Scholastic (NASDAQ: SCHL) is delivering a record-breaking first-print run of 12 million U.S. copies to meet demand -- that's a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for every ninth household.


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Harry Potter doesn't even need Muggle marketing originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>advertisingcommon experienceCommonExperiencecultural phenomenaCulturalPhenomenaHarry PotterHarry Potter and the Deadly HallowsHarryPotterHarryPotterAndTheDeadlyHallowsmarketingSCHLScholasticWed, 18 Jul 2007 17:50:00 EST<![CDATA[The Harry Potter magic turns film into gold]]>http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/07/13/the-harry-potter-magic-turns-film-into-gold/http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/07/13/the-harry-potter-magic-turns-film-into-gold/http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/07/13/the-harry-potter-magic-turns-film-into-gold/#commentsFiled under: , , , , ,

With a $44.8 million day, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix set a new record for Wednesday premieres. Twelve million copies of Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows are flying off the presses of Scholastic Corp.'s (NASDAQ:SCHL) Scholastic Press in preparation for its release at midnight on July 21.

On Bloggingstocks, we usually talk about companies first, products second, but J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series has flipped that upside down like Malfoy on the receiving end of a Hermione spell. The books and movies have a huge impact on the bottom line of companies such as Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX), Scholastic Press, Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and even eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY), and this summer's buzz is going to certainly help the year-end totals.

The question most of them will struggle with is, what next?

More Harry Potter news

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Gary E. Sattler: New York Times bestseller list leaves Harry Potter out
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter ending: A water cooler cheat sheet
Zac Bissonnette: With Harry Potter done, is it time for Scholastic to sell itself?
Tom Barlow: Rowling safeguards Potter empire
Zac Bissonnette: Is the last book the end of Potter mania?
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter and the Pots of Gold
Barry Summerlin: Harry Potter doesn't even need Muggle marketing
Julie Tilsner: Not even Harry can save bookstores from their fate
Peter Cohan: Harry Potter and the Pot of Gold
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Will Rowling kill off Harry?

Gallery: Everybody loves Harry Potter

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The Harry Potter magic turns film into gold originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 13 Jul 2007 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>AMZNEBAYfantasyfantasynovelsHarry PotterHarryPotterharrypotterandthedeadlyhallowsjrrrowlingmoviehitsnovelspottermaniascholasticbookstimewarnertwxwarnerbrothersFri, 13 Jul 2007 15:45:00 EST