Anecdotal Evidence
How much trouble is the magazine business in, anyway?
I’d gotten so frustrated with Newsweek’s practices and editorial slant (tiny Kuwait was “worth saving” in 1991; Iraq wasn’t deemed worthy in 2003) that I let my subscription slide. Notice after notice arrived in the mail, each one promising me a cheaper re-up price. Each one ended up in the garbage. My subscription ended two or three weeks ago, but the magazines keep coming every Tuesday.
Last year I got a postcard from Playboy, promising me a year-long “professional courtesy” subscription. All I had to do for a free year of Playboy was to not mail the card back to them with the “no” sticker attached. I missed the Party Jokes, so why not?
A few months later, Stuff magazine started arriving each month
It’s an interesting dynamic because the cost of printing a newspaper or magazine demands Ad revenue. The cost of the paper, ink, and printing far outweighs the news stand or subscription cost… meaning its subsidized by advertising.
So as they send out more and more free copies, it requires higher and higher prices per ad to sustain, or more ads per copy. This of course explains why magazines are more advertisement than story these days.
Alas, I doubt if I cancel Scientific American they’ll still send me issues.
I’ve been getting Stuff magazine as well, though I know why…sort of. Several months ago, I received a postcard informing me that I had been chosen to receive a 2 year subscription to Stuff absolutely free. At the time, ie. before I had seen an issue, I thought that was a pretty good deal.
Now, after having received four or five issues, I’m seriously considering calling them and cancelling my subscription, free though it is. That magazine is surely the most dim-witted publication I have ever tried to read and, even free, is not remotely worth the price of admission.
Don’t be surprised, however, if a few months down the line you get demands-for-payment from a collection agency with the word “credit” in their name. I once signed up for a free three-month trail subscription to GQ, a magazine I don’t even like that much, especially since it seems to be for fashion-conscious “liberals.” I got one free issue, and then demands from this “credit” company that I pay for my year’s subscription to GQ or I would be put in collections. I had a similar experience with PLAYBOY; same “credit” company, same threats. I did some checking on the Internet and found that this “credit” outfit is apparently a sham. They use the word “credit” to put the fear of a bad credit-rating in their victims and get them to pay for subscriptions they never actually ordered and magazines they never actually got. What’s especially disturbing is that legitimate magazines apparently use them as a kind of goon squad to boost subscriptions.
Don’t throw the Newsweak cards out, send them back w/your opinion in red ink.
Call them liars, call it fishwrap, whatever, it’s their stamp and you have nothing to lose.
Tell them to quit harrassing you.
How do I get a “professional courtesy” subscription to Playboy?
What profession does Playboy think you are in, anyway?
Note that, as Hugh Hewitt pointed out the other day, a lot of those advertisers can reach people a lot more cheaply by advertising on blogs.
For ongoing coverage of the circulation scandals (though he mainly covers newsprint) you might want to read Circulation Dropping.
We just got an offer from Atlanta Magazine (75% advertisements, 20% glossy local celebrity/food/entertainment tripe, 5% self-satisfied urban leftie snark) for two years, 50 cents an issue.
Cover price is about five bucks, incidentally.
You wrote: But something tells me my fake subscription still counts when The Rocky Mountain News reports to their advertisers.
That’s dishonest. It’s also an indication of just how desperate the MSM has become to keep their ad revenues.
It’s desperate for sure, but it’s only dishonest if the RMN and other publications like it don’t disclose this practice when selling ads. “Involuntary susbscribers” such as yourself are, in the aggregate, worth something to advertisers, even if it is less than a normal subscriber.
If they’re really being dishonest, bust them for fraud. If they’re still throwing papers on your porch after you’ve asked them to stop, bust them for littering. Otherwise, let the declining market for print ads take care of them.
If you really want to get their attention, don’t just send back those post cards with red ink. Those cards are usually postage paid, meaning the magazine has to pay. Tape the post card to a brick and let them pay the postage at 37 cents per ounce.
Heh. The Chicago Tribune – which I had jettisoned quite some time ago – has done the same as the Rocky Mountain News. Somehow that wad of dead tree and ink just keeps landing on my driveway…
I thought it was common knowledge that, at best, most subscription rates cover only postage and the actual printing cost.
In the case of several technical journals, I actually read them only for the advertisements.
The Rocky Mountain News shows up at door more often than not. I live in a townhouse complex and just leave it where it lies. My neighbor, who is a little slow with a lot of time on his hands, usually disposes of it for me. Tells me to cancel it if I don’t want it. I respond that I never ordered it. This occurs at least once a week.
I had the same problem with Newsweek. I finally had to send them a letter asking them to quit sending the magazines. Rolling Stone’s another one, my Sister and a friend of mine both get R.S. years after they cancelled their subscriptions.
I had the same problem with Chris Strauss.
Please note, my last comment was a joke on the fact that there had been something like 8 multiple postings of Chris Strauss’ post. Obviously it is even less funny, if that’s possible, now that the multiple posts have been cleaned up. It was not meant to imply any real problem with Chris.
Please feel free to remove it and this post as well.
The shame is that there really is a niche for a local newspaper that really delves into local issues with energy and intelligence, and so few locals make a real attempt at it; they fill their pages with wire copy and syndicated pieces that devoted news consumers increasingly get on-line. Talk about missing the boat.
Aside to this I noted at my daughter’s school that several hundred local newspapers are getting delivered each day and stack up lobby. I then noticed this at other schools. I wonder how many “deliveries” this counts for.
RE Newspapers at school: our local paper offers you the option of donating your paper to schools when you suspend delivery for a few days. It’s a popular option.
RE Stuff: I’m still trying to figure out which demographic niche it fits. “I know – young men today have such easy access to reams – literally – of pr0N, so let’s come up with a lad’s mag that doesn’t show anything!” I expect an Onion story at some time: “Stuff magazine on end table remains unwanked to, area man confesses.”
Then again, they could call it “Detritus,” write all the copy in Latin, and some would still buy it for the kewl pictures of guys getting hit by a Tomahawk missile in the nads, I suppose.
Very curious indeed. My wife, who donates to NPR received a free year’s subscription to Newsweak for her donation. As did everyone else who donated at her level. I let my Newsweak subscription lapse 10 years ago because I got so frustrated with their biased reporting.
I had a Houston Chronicle subscription “donated” to me by a friend at the paper 3 years ago. I haven’t paid a single cent for it.
It’s always fun to tell people who don’t know that newspapers really could care less about the money they get from subscribers – they make their money on print ads and, even more so, classifieds.
It’s that last portion that’s really killing them these days. Ebay may be what ultimately kills the newspaper industry. Craigslist too.
FREE stuff
Vodkapundit has a great observation on magazine subscriptions and the desperation of the ‘old’ media to gain and maintain customers…Magazines base their ad rates on how many eyes they can promise to deliver. Issues on newsstands barely count – ther…
The smaller, niche market magazines have been doing this for years. I cancelled Power and Motoryacht years ago, yet continued to receive issues for 2 or 3 years after that. (I was a bit disappointed when I realized I hadn’t seen one in a couple of months.)
That the practice is going so mainstream doesn’t bode will for a lot of magazines, does it?
This of course explains why magazines are more advertisement than story these days.
Not all mags. I work on a niche mag that’s 30% ads, 70% editorial. FWIW.
My friend gave me a subscription to Vanity Fair because she knew I enjoy Hitchens and Dominick Dunne. After I got fed up of VF’s editorilizing and the subscription lapsed, I received a few free issues, and for 2 years now a never-ending stream of letters and cards with $12/yr offers. How VF makes any money is beyond my understanding.
How Vanity Fair makes any money? Are you kidding me? Flip through that rag and count the full-page ads sometime. Multiply the number by, what?, $6000? $15,000?
I hate Vanity Fair’s editorializing, too, but it’s often a good airport buy because there are always a few long, engaging, serious articles amid the clutter.
The gazette does that too. I got a 6 month subsciption for something like 10 bucks, so I’d have some paper to shred up to catch guinea pig shit. Pigs apparently don’t like the gazette, so I switched to comercial bedding. A year after my subscription lapsed I still get the gazette occasionally (when they have a large printing run?)
I’m trying to remember the last time I read something written on paper by someone I couldn’t pick out of a crowd. I think it was college. Anyway, it was a long time ago.
I’m constantly amazed that there are actually still people who read newspapers and magazines in print.
We’ve seen the same thing going on in the newspaper business, with last year’s revelation that certain papers were artificially inflating their sales statistics. In other words, lying.
Yup. Two days ago, I had a guy knock on my door and tell me that I may recieve some free issues of the Seattle Times in a few days.
Unfortunately, none of the magazines I’d like to send me free issues (The Economist, say) do this. I wonder why…?
It’s not just “inflating” circulation numbers and “lying.”
It’s fraud.
Perp-walks have begun. It’s a crime to commit mail fraud.
More here.
And you wonder why the New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle are losing both subscribers and newsstand sales readers. (rolling eyes)
The enormous success of conservative talk radio, the Fox News Channel and conservative weblogs (like VodkaPundit!
) has essentially done an end-run around the MSM, and they know it full well. This explains why Howell Raines, Gerald Boyd, Dan Rather, Eason Jordan and nearly Michael Isakoff are out of their prominent jobs.
Sandy P is right: use the Business Reply mail to send back comments.
I have the Boston Globe and other political rags trying to get me to subscribe. I never demand that they put me on their “no-call” list. I want them to call me; I want them to write me. I want them to expend money sending me requests so that I can take the opportunity to tell them that I won’t give them any money because they suck.
And by the way, if you’re unhappy with these “news” organizations, please do what I did to people who advertised on CBS News with Dan Rather: I wrote them and told them that I use their product but will never do it again as long as they advertise on Dan Rather’s show. Companies do not want to spend money advertising their product on controversial shows or periodicals: it costs them business. And if they are unhappy, they have ways of telling the “news” organizations just how unhappy they are. Then everybody’s unhappy.
Friday Gatling Blog: The Hand That Feeds Edition
To make up for last week’s absence, I bring you Gatling Blog Gigante!
Amazing True Story! I am stil getting those offers from Newsweak even though I stopped subscribing over five YEARS ago. These days, I get the Weekly Standard and Commentary. For some reason, that’s all I need.
I have this issue with PB, I got soo fed up with the complete lack of balance in the articles, apparently nobody center or right of center likes attractive women in states of undress. I had a one year subscription I started in the army 8 years ago, and have never renewed, yet it still shows up at my house even after three moves, and no change of address forms.
I was offered a one-year subscription to my local paper. Free.
I must have paused for a while, because the salesman proceeded to explain that they made more money from advertising than they did from new subscribers. Thus, it was worth it to them to give away a subscription to boost their circulation.
This was three years ago, and it looks like they’ve kept renewing it at the same price.
I wondered why my neighbors & I all started receiving our local paper about a month ago without any of us requesting it.
I came here through Daou Report on Salon, and yes, I’m about as liberal as they come.
But it’s nice to know that even in an age of extreme partisan divide, liberals and conservatives can still agree that Stuff is a piece of crap. My girlfriend started getting it when something else she subscribed to went out of business, and way past the time when her original subscription expired, she’s still getting it.
Stuff distributed at random
Last month, I was adding up all the bucks I spend on media of various sorts, and noted that my $62 figure for subscriptions to magazines “does not include Stuff,…
I keep getting Newsweek renewal notices for my mother who passed on about two years.
The pitch that left a permanent mark was the couple of mailing that were labeled “WELCOME BACK“.
While I would be the most enthusiastic were it to happen, I don’t think there is any chance it will.
The RMN has never managed to cancel a subscription of mine any sooner tham 6 months after I cancelled it. When I lived in Delaware and had it delivered there, I couldn’t get it cancelled. I don’t think they’re shady, maybe just slow.
We cancelled our subscription to the Houston Chronicle several years ago, when I finally realized how angry I was that I had paid to read liberal talking points passed off as news. I read it online sometimes to keep up with the local happenings, and I take great joy in clicking straight from there to http://www.lonestartimes.com/, http://bloghouston.com/ and other local blogs, to read the real news. The Chronicle has been hemorrhaging subscribers in recent years, and they have taken to throwing complimentary copies at least once a week. These have a cover sheet listing local businesses who sponsor the free issues, and I usually make a mental note to avoid those businesses in the future. It makes me mad that the Chron can profit by throwing a paper in my yard that will go right in to the recycle bin.
Well..
Someone mentioned Scientific American. I cancelled my subscription to that monthly and the MIT Technology Review for similar reasons. They have become less balanced and more willing to epouse the lefty knee jerk reactions and make the relevant data fit the liberal paradigm. I refuse..
We take Science News and are looking for a monthly Science Mag that has not “jumped the shark.”
I recently came back to Wired as they seem to have tacked a little to the right as of late. Not to say they are next to Rush Limbaugh’s commode, but they seem to have hidden their bias better..
Catman
Neo – junk mail for my mother-in-law, may she rest in peace, is always sent back with a notice “Died – left no forwarding address”. I’m not sure if she is still getting any magazines, but it has to have been eight years since Old Pueblo Traders got an order and we are still being advised “This may be your last catalog”.
re gq’s liberal bias.
have y’all noticed that EVERY FREAKING MAGAZINE assumes that you’re a liberal democrat? SI, GQ, Esquire, Outside, Ski, Architectural Digest, etc (especially bad for women;s magazines). What’s so shocking is that they’re suggesting you buy exceptionally expensive stuff (suits, watches, shoes, …) and are convinced that you’re likely to be a very leftwing democrat.
The only magazines that I’ve read that were neutral or had a conservative expectation were Golf Digest and Robb Report’s stuff (the new Worth is much improved from its previous incarnation as a magazine for rich people ashamed of being rich, now that it is owned by Robb Report). I’m excluding Forbes, of course (great mag taht it is) given steve’s very public stance, and stuff like NR.
I guess its cause pretty much everybody on the right/libertarian side of things (pre blogs) shuts up and goes to work in the real world, while the leftists free-load doing nothing all that productive.
Based on my experience over the last two years, I’m convinced we are experiencing a pivotal moment in popular media. I have gone from primarily reading local and national newspapers and magazines to reading a number of blogs such as VodkaPundit, Instapundit, Captain’s Quarters, Outside the Beltway, etc. as well as Fox News and Drudge for news and center to right of center to libertairian viewpoints. With so much to read on the internet, who needs to subscribe to the paper MSM? During my lifetime, I’ve seen phones lose their cords, televisions gain hundreds of channels, food cooked instantly by microwave, and other techincal innovations that have resulted in changes in our day-to-day behavior. Perhaps the traditional media is losing its relevance the way radio did in the late forties and early fifties. We may be too close to a historical turn of events to be sure of what is actually happening.
The magazines are getting noticeably thinner, too. Print media will be nonexistent in ten years.
The Mirage
A little more than a week ago, I commented on the arrests of three former Newsday officials who were implicated in a scheme to boost circulation numbers. Perhaps the most notable quote came from Michael Kinsley, formerly of Slate, now…