There was a curious item in today’s (USPS) mail–a note from Wired Magazine trying to coax me to renew my subscription (which expires in June, and which I believe I got for free using airline miles, then was extended because the Conde Nast magazine I actually wanted–their classy business mag–went under the same month I subscribed).
Oh, it’s not curious that they want me to renew. What’s curious is just how far they’re going. The offer: $8 for one year. $15 for two years. That’s $15 for 24 issues of a monthly magazine, which may or may not be enough to cover postage.
To me, that smacks of desperation. For that matter, the typical $10 renewal price for many slick large-subscription monthlies strikes me as a little desperate, but when you fall significantly below that threshhold…
What’s happening here, I’m fairly certain, is that Conde Nast is anxious (desperate?) to retain its rate base, the guaranteed level of circulation used to set its ad rates, since it is ads that actually pay for Wired. And I can see the difficulty. The magazine’s media kit for the print magazine says “Paid/Verified Subscriptions: 715,749”–but the December 2011 required USPS magazine-rate information shows an average of 628,364 paid subscriptions for the past 12 issues, down to 621,059 for the most recent issue.
I suspect I’m missing a bunch of requested but not paid subscriptions, since I really don’t believe Wired‘s print version has been bleeding subscribers that rapidly–but I can understand the desire not to lose any more.
As it happens, it won’t work. It doesn’t help that the issue I’ll read next (not the current issue–I’m a bit behind) has this as its primary cover text: “YOUR NEXT CAR WILL DRIVE ITSELF.” Not “some day, some of us may have self-driving cars” but rather typical Wired: metahyperbole, like hype-squared, a statement that’s so ludicrous as to be offensive.
I wonder just how low the magazine will go? $5 a year? $1? Send me a free iPad if I send them a $15 three-year print subscription? (I might go for that. I might not.)
Samir Husni, “Mr. Magazine,” has written about print magazines underselling their own value. I think his figure was $1/issue–that is, offering subscriptions for that little money, or less, indicates that a magazine’s publisher doesn’t place much value in the magazine.
It’s not a bad figure. Let’s say that going significantly below $1/issue doesn’t inspire confidence. What does that say about $15/24, that is, $0.625 per issue?
Understand: I’m a print magazine kind of guy. I take a bunch of them. I read them pretty much cover to cover (which may be why my to-be-read stack, between two and three months’ worth, is now completely filling the designated basket). I like some variety.
I’m keeping Fast Company (which offered me extensions at $10/year, but it’s a 10x/year “monthly” so that’s $1/issue). Lately, I find that Fast Company is almost as tendentious and assured of the single future as Wired always has been (“GenFlux” as the universal future, my nether regions), but in general it’s a little less zooey. Taking both strikes me as overload.
