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PASTOR GENERAL'S
REPORT
TO THE MINISTRY OF THE
WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD
VOL.4, N0.26
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA
QUEST MAGAZINE UPDATE
JUNE 25, 1982
The sale of QUEST magazine to Prime Time Communications, Inc. was announced
in the August 31, 1981 issue of the WORLDWIDE NEWS. Since that time other
developments have required the Ambassador Foundation to reassume the
responsibilities for disposing of QUEST.
The sale to Prime Time was predicated upon their marketing a stock issue
which would provide funds for incorporating QUEST into their magazine.
Prime Time would, in turn, fulfill all the subscription liability for
QUEST.
This would have removed any further expense to the Ambassador
Foundation with respect to the publication.
Unfortunately, due to the continually declining economy, the stock issue
was never marketed even though the Foundation had assurances from the
underwriter.
As a result, the publication of QUEST ceased with the
September, 1981 issue.
Prime Time was not only unable to continue the production of their magazine
but also QUEST.
In fact, the publisher took voluntary bankruptcy in
December, 1981. This left the potential subscription liability of over two
and one-quarter million dollars for QUEST still unfulfilled.
Immediately, the Foundation moved to extricate QUEST from court bankruptcy
proceedings in order to fulfill our obligation to QUEST subscribers. This
was accomplished in early January. Time was of the essence since we were
beginning to receive an abundance of calls concerning the publication.
A governmental agency, the Audit Bureau of Circulation, oversees the
magazine publishing business. It normally allows a grace period of three
months maximum to either resume the publication of a magazine, refund the
subscription price or fulfill the 1iability with other publications. We
were granted a 60-day extension in which to fulfill our responsibilities.
It was determined that we could best assume the responsibilities for dis
posing of QUEST internally. The transfer mailing was made to over 276,000
QUEST subscribers. Our Accounting, Data Processing, Mail Processing and
Publishing Departments handled the mailing and processing of the entire
project.
It was a sizable project which was handled expeditiously and
extremely well by these departments.
We were able to offer 13 leading and diverse magazines to the subscribers to
satisfy our obligations.
These included NEWSWEEK, MODERN PHOTOGRAPHY,
ATLANTIC MONTHLY, SKI, SATURDAY REVIEW and ESQUIRE, to name just a few.
These magazine publishers were willing to assume our subscription obliga
tions with their magazines for the entire mailing list. They provided the
magazine subscriptions to QUEST subscribers at no cost to Ambassador
Foundation.
The QUEST affairs were all finalized on June 15. Therefore, we have satis
fied all of our subscription liabilities and closed out the publication.
--Ellis LaRavia, Ambassador Foundation