Magazines -- The Next Big Thing -- Nothing About The Bakken -- April 5, 2016

You know things are slow when I start blogging about magazines. LOL. I happened to come across a couple of interesting articles yesterday and then observed something on the newstand.

First, the article on The New Yorker which I blogged about earlier: The New Yorker will test how much subscribers are willing to pay for their magazine -- their readers appear to be "addicted" to the magazine and will renew regardless of the price.

Second, from The Wall Street Journal two days ago: Prevention Magazine Takes Radical Step: No Print Ads. CEO opts to raise newsstand, subscription prices and slash costs by eliminating ad pages --

Facing hard times at her family’s magazine company, publishing heiress Maria Rodale recently made a radical decision. Prevention magazine, once Rodale Inc.’s flagship title, will no longer accept print advertising starting with its July issue.

Prevention, which focuses on nutrition, fitness and weight loss, sold 707 ad pages in 2015—8.3% more than the prior year. But the revenue from those ads was less than in 2014, when the magazine had a much larger circulation and commanded a higher rate.
The newsstand price for Prevention, which made its debut in 1950, has immediately increased to $4.99 from $3.99, while annual subscriptions will double to $48 starting with the July issue.

Ms. Rodale said she expects Prevention’s circulation to eventually stabilize at around 500,000 compared with today’s guaranteed circulation of 1.5 million. Printing one million fewer copies each month, together with reducing the size of the magazine to 96 editorial pages from about 140, including ads, will save money on production and raw materials. The magazine is also cutting 13 ad sales jobs, leaving three employees to handle ads on Prevention.com.

The cutbacks will reduce Prevention’s operating expenses by more than 50%, Ms. Rodale said.

And finally this, from the news stand at the local grocery store, I noted this month's Rolling Stone wow, it has gotten slim over the past year. The magazine has shrunk in size over the years but I've never noticed how slim it has become. It was incredibly thin but very, very glossy. Maybe they are taking a page from Apple, making their product thinner will increase sales. LOL.

Whatever.

There are at least two story lines here. First, it certainly appears ad pages are decreasing in many magazines. I assume ad pages for The New Yorker haven't changed much over the past couple of years, but one wonders with the increasing subscription and news stand prices if The New Yorker might be moving toward fewer ad pages. With The Rolling Page as thin as it is, it certainly has to have cut down on ad pages.

The other story is the "addiction" to certain magazines, as noted by The WSJ with regard to The New Yorker.  I will probably re-new my subscription to The New Yorker regardless how much they charge. To pay for that "luxury" or indulgence, I have discontinued my subscription to The National Geographic (I still pay for a subscription for the granddaughters); I will not renew Texas Monthly (the font is too hard to read, and there are way too many ad pages (bucking the trend regarding ads). In addition, I will not renew my one-year introductory subscription to The London Review of Books which pales in comparison to The New York Review of Books. And, I think I mentioned this before, I will not renew my one-year introductory subscription to The Smithsonian (too cluttered with ads -- again, bucking the trend). I discontinued my subscription to BloombergBusinessweek some time ago and blogged about that decision several times.

By the way, I discontinued my National Geographic subscription because of the cover photograph of the Statue of Liberty going underwater due to rising seas. That's when I knew the National Geographic had lost its objectivity.