Why not BTG?

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The Enduring Vision of a Young Couple

 

Just over 78 years ago, in February 1922, the very first issues of a

new kind of reading service - Reader's Digest magazine - went out to 1,500

original rs. It's founder was DeWitt Wallace, a wise, witty and

unassuming man who in October 1921 married the youthful, idealistic Lila

Acheson.

Lila shared his enthusiasm and confidence in his dream, so much so

that she kept her social service job for the first year of their marriage in

order to pay the rent of their basement flat in New York's Greenwich

Village, while the young couple worked together to produce the first issues.

The inspiration for Reader's Digest came while the then Sergeant

Wallace was recovering from shrapnel wounds in France. Reading dozens of

magazines, he was impressed by the fact that the impact of most articles

could be improved by vigorously condensing them, focussing on essentials. He

wanted to condense the best of previously published material of enduring

appeal into a pocket-sized, non-fiction magazine that would inform,

enlighten and entertain. It is a formula that remains the essence of The

Digest today.

The growth of the magazine's popularity was beyond DeWitt and Lila

Wallace's dream - 5,000 circulation for the first issue, 50,000 in 1926,

228,000 in 1929. The first international edition appeared in Britain in

1938. The Indian edition was born in 1954. In that year, its circulation was

40,000 copies. Today the circulation is 406,000 - a ten fold increase.

DeWitt Wallace died in 1981; Lila Acheson Wallace three years later.

Their memorial is the world's most widely read magazine, reaching almost 100

million people in 19 languages every month. Each issue contains articles of

lasting interest.

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PS: CAN WE HAVE A SIMILAR GOAL FOR BTG?