Isn't Dirty Des OK! with the USA?

In the latest example of British magazine publishing crossing the Atlantic, Richard "Dirty Des" Desmond, well-shady owner of The Express newspapers and the UK celebrity gossip magazine OK!, is set to launch a US version on August 4.

Desmond (pictured right), you might remember, is notorious for his anti-German outburst last year, when he confronted executives of the Daily Telegraph, which at that time was being considered for purchase by Axel Springer, a German media group, following the departure of Conrad Black from Hollinger International, the Telegraph's owners. (The German group didn't proceed with the bid). Desmond apparently didn't like the idea of the very English Telegraph being owned by the Germans, and let Telegraph CEO Jeremy Deedes know it by branding him a "miserable little piece of shit" and saying "Germans were 'all Nazis,'" before proceeding to do a Basil Fawlty-style Hitler goosestep and instructing Express executives to sing "Deutschland uber Alles" and throw Nazi "Sieg Heil" salutes to the stunned Telegraph executives as they rapidly exited. Apparently, Desmond also "called the Telegraph directors 'fucking cunts' and 'fucking wankers' among other names in an expletive-ridden tirade." A nasty piece of work, this Richard Desmond. And maybe a bit mental.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. Desmond's Northern & Shell group also owns the Daily Express and Sunday Express. But OK! is its flagship and big moneyspinner. Some Americans might remember OK! as the magazine that supposedly paid £1m for pictures of the Catherine Zeta Jones-Michael Douglas wedding a few years ago.

MediaGuardian notes that Northern & Shell "is putting $100m (£58m) behind the release of the new magazine, which it claims is the biggest launch in US magazine history." The piece quotes Stan Myerson, Northern & Shell's joint group managing director, as saying "We have received the most incredible support in the United States, not only from the news trade and advertisers but also from the many celebrities we have approached. . . . All of them tell us they have been awaiting OK! USA, with its unique style and celebrity friendly format, for a very long time. Everybody is looking forward to the launch."

That's just wonderful. Still, it's not what Jossip.com has been hearing. Taking its info from a New York Post article (registration required), the web site notes that OK! USA's first edition might "only have six paid advertisements in its pages." Meanwhile, Desmond has "struggled to secure a printing press large enough to spit out 1.5 million copies for OK!'s debut."

Finally inking a deal, he's reduced to printing on Monday afternoon, while Us Weekly prints more favorably on Tuesday mornings and People runs on Wednesdays.

A deputy editor of the UK OK!, Sarah Ivens, is moving to New York to take up a consultant editor position with the new magazine. Sounds like she's got her work cut out for her if she's to work some of that UK mag magic.