In the latest sign of trouble in the celebrity-magazine field, In Touch and Life & Style both announced significant rollbacks in the number of copies they expect to sell on newsstands each week.

In Touch said it was reducing its so-called rate base by 17 percent to 1 million copies a week, down from its current 1.2 million.

The more troubled Life & Style, said it was chopping its rate base 21 percent to 550,000.

As a result, the price of a single page, four-color ad in In Touch will drop to $102,085. At Life & Style the price is $49,515.

Both magazines were under intense pressure from wholesalers last year to raise their cover prices from their original newsstand price of $1.99.

When the parent company Bauer Publishing caved and upped the price to $2.99, fewer copies were sold.

Yesterday, Media Ink reported that In Touch was expected to be flat to down when the second-half 2007 numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulations are released next week, while Life & Style was expected to tumble by 10 percent. Ian Scott, president of Bauer’s ad sales, said that the move is actually a sign of strength since the 20 percent cut in the rate base followed a 50 percent hike in the cover price, yielding a more profitable circulation story.