Celebrity-driven circulation gains
By PAUL D. COLFORD DAILY NEWS BUSINESS WRITER

The new In Touch Weekly can't get enough of Jennifer Aniston.
She dominated three of the last five covers and appears on a fourth this week because Beverly Hills neighbors have tired of construction on the home she shares with husband Brad Pitt.

The response to such celebrity obsession is that Bauer Publishing will raise the circulation it guarantees advertisers - to 350,000 copies an issue, from the current 250,000 - in April.

Though well below Us Weekly's 1.05 million and mighty People's 3.35 million, the hike suggests In Touch is getting traction on brutally crowded newsstands since its October launch.

Indeed, the Daily News previously reported that an early issue fronted by "Diana's Secret Love Story" sold some 460,000.

As Bauer Publishing targets women in their 20s and 30s, it's priced In Touch to please - at $1.99 - $1.30 cheaper than both Us and People.

Now, the boasting has begun.

In Touch executive editor Steve LeGrice noted the new mag looked into whispers that Aniston and Pitt's love is on the rocks - last week's cover - before Us and People did so in their issues this week.

But faster can be easier when a mag recycles a number of quotes from other media, as In Touch did in its "Can They Stop the Rumors?" story.

"Although this is a new magazine, the people involved in it are not new," LeGrice said. The staff includes veterans of the Star and Fleet Street.

"Apparently, they're trying to ride the People and Us wave," said Media Industry Newsletter editor in chief Steven Cohn, who's struck by how much In Touch looks like Us.

"It's all legal," he said of the resemblance, "and clever as well."

An Us spokesman said: "Imitation is the oldest form of flattery."