Originally Posted by howsteepisit
You all need to understand the business model of a US magazine. They make the vast majority of thier money via advertising. Its not about subscriptions or newsstand sales. The only reason for distribution is to generate numbers to justify the advertising rates. Its a big business and the articles are support to the advertisers. So, interesting and useful articles which do not try to convince us that the latest kit is the stuff we have to have, are not justifiable to the profit center managers at Rodale. When was the last time you saw any article about say the best budget priced equipment? Them's the facts folks. like it or not.
I'll only offer two comments on the content of Bicycling magazine: 1) a friend of mine said that the best way to assess a magazine is by counting the number of pages that go UNREAD in a magazine, and 2) when a magazine runs a full catalog of cycling equipment in its issue (Veltec catalog in the current issue), and the catalog is more interesting than the magazine it is in- well, there's something really wrong with that magazine.
As one who happens to be in the magazine biz, let me correct you: magazines make
all their money via advertising. That subscription they sold you for $4.95 for the year? They're losing about $7 on you just on printing and distribution alone. That does not take into account the marketing they did to get you in the first place. These days, it's costing a publisher about $60-$70 per reader (via direct marketing) to get you to subscribe. Then they 'monetize' the readership via ad rates where they're charging $108 per thousand readers, or $43,415 per page. Supposedly they have a circulation of 400,000 copies per issue, but if you look into their circulation statement, 80% of the subscriptions sold are 'sponsored'- that's the $4 subscriptions everyone is getting. An agent sells you a cheap subscription, sends $12 to Rodale with your name so you are counted as a paying subscriber (has to be 50% of the base price to count as paid), and then Rodale sends a check back to the agent for $9 as a marketing allowance or commission. You end up with a reader that got the magazine because it was so damn cheap he couldn't say no, and not because he absolutely had to have this magazine. And, oh, did I mention that the advertisers negotiate the crap out of ad rates, so discounts of 60% or more aren't unheard of? Bottom line, the traditonal printed magazine business model is broken, and they're scrambling to make it work....
So, the answer is digital publishing. Take a look at the magazine we are publishing on the web:
www.windingroad.com (I know, I know, it's a car mag, but just take a look- it won't hurt!) It's a free subscription with no strings attached. People on the web do not expect to pay for their access to information, and the quality of our product is probably better than a print magazine. And the advertisers support it, but they pay a fraction of what they would pay for an ad in a print magazine, so everyone wins. We believe it's the future of magazines (check out the embedded videos in the magazine...) in the near future.
So, if I suggested that we would do a cycling magazine along the lines of Winding Road, how would you react to this idea? A real cycling magazine for real enthusiasts, and not the recycled fluff that I'm hard pressed to imagine who it is directed towards.....