Prince William’s Dumping Of Kate, Reasserting Him As The World’s Most Eligible Bachelor, May Be Just What The Flailing UK National Tabloids Need, with Paparazzi Help, To Get Their Circulation Up Again, Plus What A “Kiss And Tell” Exclusive Kate Could Offer To The Highest Bidder

The UK tabloids have never really recovered since the death of Princess Diana nearly 10 years ago. Until that horrible car crash in Paris the tabloids were in a spending frenzy – anything Diana did, any picture taken of her with possible lovers, and the tabloids paid fortunes and circulation soared. But since then circulation has been downhill. No real “star” has emerged since, but now it seems her eldest son has come to their rescue.

The Sun tabloid scored its second exclusive in less than a week in breaking the story that William had broken up with Kate Middleton. A few days earlier, it had paid some £60,000 (€87,500, $118,000) for an exclusive interview with Faye Turney, the sole British female sailor captured among the 15 sailors and marine taken and later released by Iran. For The Sun those exclusives are vitally important – its circulation has been on a non-stop slide for many years and in the March ABCs it got perilously close to dropping below that magic 3 million psychological circulation barrier (3,031,724).

In those March audit numbers, The Sun’s circulation dropped 1.32% from February, and is down 2.55% over the same month last year. At Diana’s death its circulation was approaching five million.

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Not much has worked for the tabloids in getting their circulations up (even the free DVDs seem to have lost their luster), but what has proven true is that when they get an exclusive it can add 100,000 to that day’s circulation. Whether it be checkbook journalism, as with Faye Turney – and Rupert Murdoch has a big check book -- or just plain good old journalistic exclusives (William’s breakup which apparently happened around Easter still took a week to break exclusively) the Sun should be looking for better April numbers.

And then there is Kate Middleton. Is she the lady everyone believes her to be, and she keeps the story of her romance with William to herself, or will she turn bitter – especially if he starts showing up with a new girl friend -- and so she sells to the highest bidder? Max Clifford, probably the UK’s most famous story-broker, says several papers have already contacted him desperate to buy Kate’s story. It would go, he believes, for at least £5 million (€7.5 million, $10 million).

He said, “'I'm sure she wouldn't even dream of doing it, but she's in that position of being the hottest kiss'n'tell property in history. I've already had contacts from various national newspapers saying, ‘If she comes to you, tell us’.”

But in the UK “kiss and tell” can no longer be what it once was. New UK case law has basically ruled that individuals, including personalities, have an expectation of privacy in their private lives and publication of such private events without permission is not allowed. So there are limits to how specific “kiss and Tell” stories can be these days, at least in the UK and the EU. Of course, in the US there are no such considerations. Too bad there is an unrelated KissandtellKate web site.

Already Kate’s family’s home is under media assault and the lawyers have been brought in to warn the press away, saying Kate and her family must be left alone, with “any further intrusions into their privacy” being “viewed as harassment”.

Even Prime Minister Tony Blair got in on the act. “They (Kate and William) should be left alone now without reams of stuff being written that I can assure you, from my experience of royal stories, most of which will be complete nonsense.” he told the BBC, giving at the same time his grim view of Royal Court reporting.

But the odds are the media will not leave either of them alone, the story is just too big, not just in the UK but around the world (At one time Sunday a Google news search on “Prince William” produced 926 results, by far the most for any Google search news subject). And in the UK where the March ABC figures showed the tabloids continuing to slide – circulation down around 3.8% year-on-year -- they will hang onto every peg the story offers.

Kate was never happy with the excessive paparazzi attention. On her 25th birthday earlier this year it was a madhouse outside her home and even the media saw that it was too much with the two Murdoch tabloids, The Sun and News of the World saying they wouldn’t publish paparazzi pictures of her any more. And when the Daily Mirror did publish one a few weeks ago of her walking to work she complained to the Press Complaints Commission and the Mirror immediately apologized, and she then withdrew the complaint.

The Sun’s longtime royal photographer, Arthur Edwards, best summed up Kate’s relationship with the media in a BBC interview just a few days before the break-up was known. “Kate Middleton is a private person. She's given no interviews. She's sought no publicity. She's just fallen in love with a prince. The harassment, the continual stalking by cameramen, that's not on," he said.

While that was an understandable position for a young woman to take, it didn’t help sell newspapers. Now the tabloids have Diana’s two sons as fair game. Prince Harry, also in the army, has been going out for more than two years with blonde Chelsy Davy, who lives in South Africa, and that makes for some long distance commuting that the media covers in earnest – the two last met up in the Bahamas over Easter for some fun in the sun. She is expected to start a post graduate degree in politics at the UK’s University of Bristol this Autumn. That, and with William now on the prowl again, all makes for a British tabloid editor’s dream come true.

Even the bookmakers have made out like bandits on this one. “We are as shocked as everyone else, if rather more relieved than most, as we were preparing to pay out over £50,000 to punters who had backed the couple to wed.” said a spokesman for the William Hill bookmakers. Already the same firm is offering 6-1 odds that William will end up marrying a female army officer and 1-2 odds that his brother Harry will marry first. And if you want, you can even get 20-1 odds on William marrying Britney Spears!