WWTBAM Bored

We are renewing for $20/year, same as last year. A terrific rate.

There must be a lot of people buying this on the stands, because $20 a year is not enough to cover ink/paper costs for 57 issues.

I've been getting magazine since it began and love it. I think that they make a lot of money from ad revenue.

I rather doubt the subscrition cost is covering the freight. AS PSM notes the advertising sales does that. And the more subscribers the mag can show the more they can advertise a guaranteed reading audience putting eyeballs on the ads. What they sell at the newstand is more variable and so perhaps less appealing to the advertiser. And so theoretically the more they charge for the ads.

Subscription cost never covers a print medium, or at least it can't do so in newspapering. I presume the same is true of most magazines.

The typical rate at my paper is 80% from ads and under 10% from subscriptions. The other 10% comes from revenue streams developed in the past ten years, like the direct marketing unit that can tell you which kind of reader/online reader lives in which zip codes, and arrange direct mail or newspaper delivery of your flyer to only those areas.

Ritterskoop wrote:We are renewing for $20/year, same as last year. A terrific rate.

There must be a lot of people buying this on the stands, because $20 a year is not enough to cover ink/paper costs for 57 issues.

Do they really do 57 issues in a year? How?

TheConfessor wrote:

Ritterskoop wrote:We are renewing for $20/year, same as last year. A terrific rate.

There must be a lot of people buying this on the stands, because $20 a year is not enough to cover ink/paper costs for 57 issues.

Do they really do 57 issues in a year? How?

They have a certain number of extra issues every year covering specific topics, like a special Oscar issue (although I don't remember getting one this year) and a Photos of the Year issue. They also had an extra one this year on nothing but Harry Potter and maybe a Lord of the Rings one (I don't remember because I didn't even open those).

I've been a subscriber for almost 20 years, but I think I'm not renewing when the current one runs out. I didn't know if it was me or them, but one of us has gone downhill. Caro agrees that it is them.

TheConfessor wrote: Do they really do 57 issues in a year? How?

They count the double issues as two. Seasonal movie previews is four, though nothing leaps to mind on what the other one is. Maybe some sort of year-end recap.

The Dec. 28, 2007/Jan. 4, 2008 Double issue on page 40 has the year in covers if that helps with the count.

I'm thinking the double issues are some combination of movie seasons, Fall TV, Oscars, Photos, and Year End/Best Worst.

Ritterskoop wrote:They count the double issues as two. Seasonal movie previews is four, though nothing leaps to mind on what the other one is. Maybe some sort of year-end recap.

MarkBarrett wrote:The Dec. 28, 2007/Jan. 4, 2008 Double issue on page 40 has the year in covers if that helps with the count.

I'm thinking the double issues are some combination of movie seasons, Fall TV, Oscars, Photos, and Year End/Best Worst.

The double issues count as two, but usually encompass two weeks, so that doesn't affect the weekly count.

I'm pretty sure Photos is a stand alone and I know the Oscars used to be. By stand alone I mean that there is no other news in the issue other than the subject, which is not the case with most double issues (like the new TV season or seasonal movie previews).

They send me "Wired" for free because I'm an "industry insider". The ad volume must be 2/3 of the magazine.

MarkBarrett wrote:The Dec. 28, 2007/Jan. 4, 2008 Double issue on page 40 has the year in covers if that helps with the count.

I'm thinking the double issues are some combination of movie seasons, Fall TV, Oscars, Photos, and Year End/Best Worst.

They have four double issues a year, including one at the year's end with the Best and Worst of the Year in review, but they count as two weeks (ie, it says issue #1/#2) covering a two week period. Others vary from year to year, but they have had Oscar preview issues, photo issues, TV, music and seasonal movie previews as double issues. Essentially it's anything they can pad with a couple of extra stories and a bunch of extra ads to come up with a 150 page issue.

Special issues come up every now and then on special themes like their tribute to Friends issue. They aren't numbered. If you get 52 issues, you actually receive 48 separate magazines.

No matter how they figure it, $20 is a good deal. We pay about that much for our subscription as a "student" rate. I managed to get that one time and they keep offering to renew us at the same rate.

Bob Juch wrote:They send me "Wired" for free because I'm an "industry insider". .

This cracked me up.

I was considering getting EW since Us has become the mouthpiece for The Hills publicist rather than a good ragazine. I mean, who the hell is Heidi Montag, besides some media ho who is famous for being famous? She's always on their cover.

Even if EW has gone downhill, it can't be worse than THAT, can it?

What mini said....I get US and it takes me all of 5 minutes to flip through it. I usually just throw it away. I think my subscription runs out soon. It's one I got from one of the kid's school fundraising projects.