from a business perspective what I find most interesting is hardly any advertisers in there.
Right, Marcel. As a matter of fact I just ordered the new issue*, but I was referring to American magazines. Magneto is British, I believe. *From eBay, as no one at Magneto answered my email to help me place an on line order with them.
Ahh the magazine business... Oddly no one mentioned Enzo and the train wreck they are right from the start. Anyway as print and postage go up, subscribers want cheaper subscriptions and advertisers don't really want to pay. At least here in the U.S. It's a no win situation for many that can't get the support from big paying advertisers as news stand is shrinking and has been for many years. Distribution is all but a monopoly here in the U.S. and independent publishers have no pull for higher margins. Some magazines do well still and I know many brave people still trying to get it to work but I am not optimistic.
FerrariChat was always an easy sell because I came in under a quarter page ad in Forza, Cavallino, or FML. All I had to say was would you rather pay more for X,XXX people who will flip through once or would you rather pay less for XX,XXX people who visit multiple times a day the entire month. You could hear the wind rushing businesses leaving print for us.
those are wise and accurate words! I haven't read a FML in forever, I'm kind of scared to look. I browsed a Forza the other day and was disappointed. I'm sure Cavallino still had great specific vintage articles.
You had me until this statement which is so wrong, I can't believe the rest of what you wrote. In the US, advertising pays the bills. Subscriptions for almost every magazine are a loss leader. The cost of a subscription does not usually cover printing, paper and postage. It is simple economics. You may be referring to readership. Readership is the number of impressions a magazine gets. This is how ad prices are based. More readership = higher ad costs. I'm a 25 year veteran of the industry. I retired in 2016 and work in healthcare now.
By the way, Sports Illustrated was just put on life support. I read a pretty detailed article about it this morning. Based on what I read, I'm guessing it will be pulled from print in 3 years.
My problems have been attracting advertisers. Readers were not really an issue but even with some pretty high draws off the news stand with both overall sales and percent sold, advertisers were all but impossible for me to find. Lots of trading but very few willing to pay. I cannot speak for anyone else in the magazine industry but I pulled my quarterly and am revamping what I do but while I tentatively plan an annual Bookazine, I am not sure even that will draw advertisers either.
I had dozens of clients when I retired from the business, including one of the most successful niche weekly magazines in the country. I did not have one client on solid financial footing. The weekly was a well known title that followed a sporting event and enjoyed major national advertisers. The publisher confided in me the difficulties they were having getting the likes of Nike, etc to buy ads. About a year later the company was sold, and the weekly was transformed into a monthly. Advertisers don't want to be in print magazines, there are far more effective ways to get content out to readership. The printers are doing their best to position print as a niche luxury. I think that magazines will always exist, but they will be a premier type of marketing.