Celebrity news weekly OK! has affirmed that its publisher Stephen Barr has resigned just seven months into his tenure. He joined the magazine in April.

Barr took over from Lori Burgess and was OK!'s third publisher since the UK-based Northern & Shell launched it in the US in 2005.

Though advertisement pages in the magazine were up 20 per cent this year through 15 November, OK!'s circulation has fallen sharply.
The weekly's newsstand circulation dropped by nearly 10 per cent and OK! fell short of the rate base promised to advertisers by more than 100,000 copies.

A magazine spokesperson claimed that newsstand sales have risen since Richard Spencer signed on as editor-in-chief in early October, but rivals have suspected that OK!'s ad-page growth is coming at the expense of deep discounts.

No replacement has been named for Barr, a spokesperson for the US version of the celebrity news magazine said.