More from Publishers Weekly

PW has an article this week about, well, let me just quote it:

Bertelsmann to Exit Club Business in U.S.
"Less than one year after it paid $150 million to Time Warner to acquire complete control of Bookspan, Bertelsmann has put the Bertelsmann Direct North America unit up for sale and is considering selling its entire Direct Group, which houses all of its various club businesses worldwide. The North American group consists of 21 book clubs plus BMG Music Service and Columbia House DVD, under the direction of Stuart Goldfarb. Revenue in 2007 was just under 900 million euros ($1.2 billion), with more than half generated by the book clubs."

(emphasis mine)

"As part of its effort to integrate Bookspan into BMG/Columbia, BDNA eliminated several hundred jobs in the year and incurred substantial impairment (291 million euros) and restructuring (123 million euros) charges in 2007. Excluding those one-time events, the division was marginally profitable last year."

(emphasis still mine)

Connecting any dots will be left to the reader.