Vodkapundit has a great observation (I am such a moron for not linking to this article previously...arrghgh) 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 – there's no promise anyone will ever buy them. What counts is, how many people get each issue mailed to them. 100,000 paid subscribers are worth a lot more than 1,000,000 issues delivered to Barnes & Noble.
But it would now appear that even unpaid subscribers are considered too valuable to lose.
Problem is...nobody ever sends me any free stuff. I can barely get the magazine subscriptions I pay for!
BBC Good Food Magazine is a MUST have for tai-tai. On average, two issues a year come up missing. This is a subscription that costs me close to USD75.00 a year (mainly because the substance to advertisement ratio is about 4:1...versus Better Homes & Gardens which is probably 1:4)!! They are usually pretty good about replacing it if it comes up missing and we bitch loud enough.
Last Thanksgiving, our November issue was missing. We inquired and found out that...uh...'we don't have any more. Sold out.' Sold out of magazines??? C'mon! They extended our subscription 3 months...for the 1 issue they couldn't send us. So, I guess, I am getting a little something free, aren't I.
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