By: E&P Staff Bert R. Tiffany understood the value of details. As vice president of circulation for the Los Angeles Times, he paid close attention to how the paper?s various markets performed, knowing how each of them contributed to the paper?s total circ.
Tiffany, who died Wednesday of lung cancer at age 81, at his home in Bonsall, Calif., headed the L.A. Times' circulation department for 24 years under then-publishers Otis Chandler and Tom Johnson.
Under Tiffany?s watch, Times? daily circ reached 1,136,813; on Sundays, 1,421,711. He was a leader in turning the newspaper industry away from independent dealer networks, through which newspapers sold to distributors at wholesale prices. He replaced those with a network of contracted distributors, which made for huge revenue gains for the newspaper and better control over pricing models.
In addition, he implemented the first in-house automated telemarketing system and the only news rack manufacturing operation to be run by a newspaper company.
Upon his retirement in 1988, the L.A. Times had the highest home-delivery circulation of any newspaper in the country ? and ranked fourth in overall weekday circulation.
Born in Los Angeles, he delivered newspapers for the Alhambra Post-Advocate as a youth and returned to work there in the circulation department after serving in the Army Air Forces at the end of World War II.
He became circulation manager of the Burbank Daily Review in 1954, and in 1956 he joined the L.A. Times as a district manager in circulation. He was promoted to circulation manager in 1964.
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