Stewart: Comeback queen

New York, Jan. 21: The financial fortunes of Martha Stewart, the American domestic guru, have soared since she went to jail for lying over a share deal. And they are likely to get rosier by the time she gets out, analysts said yesterday.

On the day last March when Stewart was convicted of lying to investigators ? she was later given a five-month sentence ? shares in her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, slumped to a record low. Her main television programme on CBS, Martha Stewart Living, was cancelled after its ratings plummeted. Scores of her employees were laid off and sales declined.

Last September, the company reported earnings of ?68 million, down from ?93 million the previous year. However, since her conviction, the company?s share price has almost trebled, increasing the value of her personal stake from ?170 million to an estimated ?440 million.

Her release from prison, due on March 6, has created a lucrative marketing opportunity for her company and her media profile is predicted to soar.

Executives at her company told the New York Times that syndication fees for her next television venture ? a daytime cooking and style show on NBC ? are ?significantly higher? than they were for her CBS series, even at its peak.

At the same time, advertisers are returning to her home style magazine, reportedly encouraged by the melting of her icy image since she went to ?Camp Cupcake?, Alderson jail in West Virginia.

Her decision to serve her five-month prison sentence, which friends refer to as the ?intermission?, before her appeal went through was widely seen as an attempt to improve public perceptions.

Marketing experts are not sure whether the American public feels more sympathetic towards her or whether it is simply curious to see what she is like when she gets out. Either way, they say, she and her company will benefit.

?If she gets behind prison reform, then she becomes St Martha,? Hayes Roth, a brand consultant, told the New York Times. ?If she gets back to running the basics of the business and has this added patina, if you will, of having suffered and moved ahead in her life ? well, Americans love that.?