I thought the content seemed light, and then I noticed the issue is just 66 pages compared to the normal 82. I didn’t check ad count, but I hope the page cutback isn’t permanent.
It’s not. This goes in cycles. They’ll add more pages again once they raise the price.
Are there ads in the online stuff, besides the ads on these pages on the forum? Are they trying to transition advertisers to online, thereby making the print version uneconomical?
I actually look at most of the magazine ads, at least briefly, because they’re about model trains. I don’t bother looking at ads online, because scrolling is awkward and many of the ads are for just random garbage products.
FWIW the October 1991 issue was 202 pages…
Let us not forget in 1991 the internet was not in commercial use. Ads were the main marketing channel.
But a 66 page magazine seems like the product is dwindling.
I wonder if at some point it may be decided it makes more sense to do like Narrow Gauge & Short Line Gazette does (and Railfan and Railroad used to do) and go to every-other-month issues…six 130-150 page issues per year, rather than twelve 65-75 page issues?
Paper magazines are a tough sell.
The issues page count has always been variable over the year thinest towards June and fatest in DEC and JAn Nothing unusual about it thin right now
Shane
Well, many of us prefer reading a real book or magazine and don’t care to use a tablet or read from our computer screens. MRH is ok but I find I hardly ever read it any longer as I find it tedious to read online.
MR has always dropped and risen page counts month to month over time. I know not why! They always complain they need articles to print, which is true, but I have talked to many folks over the years who, like me, have submitted articles only to be rejected. Excuses cite lack of interest on the subject but wouldn’t SOMETHING be better than NOTHING? MR always says you can gain good information from any article whether it’s in your scale, gauge or era, etc and that is true so why refuse so much that’s sent to you? Watching Cody assemble and paint plastic kits month after month can’t be as exciting or rewarding as seeing someones S scale layout or building any layout and the techniques involved. I’m 71 and have been reading MR and RMC since I was about 6 and always find interesting things that have helped and improved my model railroading.
I guess they’ll blame it all on covid as that seems to be the catch-all fault for everything nowadays!
oldline1
Same here, I long for the days when MR was a hefty magazine, but times change.
Its more comforting for me to think in terms of the “total hobby value” of all the information I have access to through my basic subscription to Model Railroader - the magazine, the website, free videos, forums, and so on.
Case-in-point, I’ve made good use of the “Add to Favorites” feature to save about 100 forum postings which were of particular interest to me. If you think of each of these postings, with the input of many experienced modelers, as (at least!) a magazine article… well, that makes up for a lot of “missing pages” in print.
Jim
Almost all paper-based magazines are suffering and will continue. It is ok if they cut the number of pages as long as I still have a magazine…
Mag is gone, give it 2 years.
Ugh! Another version of the “MR hobby is dead” post. Is the change in page count a one-off event or cycle? Just because there are fewer pages doesn’t mean the content diminishes. There are probably fewer ads since many LHS closed and people have less money to spend.
I welcome thoughts from folks who know magizine publications. While not promoting “fluff” pieces to boost the magazine, perhaps some here can publish articles. Instead of another “here’s my layout” article, why not present a unique or fresh angle to the hobby?
That’ s how I feel about this problem. Just keep buying the magazine.
The actual cost to produce and distribute the paper magazine exceeds the revenue earned I suspect. Modern publishing software means there’s essentially no marginal cost to putting the magazine on line. Electronic version to hard copy print version used to be tricky software but not any longer. What you see on line is what the huge printing machine sees as it essentially “photocopies” your hard copy.
Just as you’ll soon be able to download and 3D print your replacement locomotive parts you can’t actually physically buy at the moment, eventually everyone will simply print the parts of a magazine they actually want to read. Including the advertising item they are interested in.
As always, the challenge is in building the revenue model. Nobody works for free.
First it was audio, the music publishing business radically transformed itself. That’s not all done yet. The ultimate cost reduction is provided by “garage band” recording software and very cheap high fidelity internet streaming. Direct from producer to consumer, no middle man markup. No loss in value delivered.
Movies were next. Some movies never make it to a theatre (mind you I do find some movie “niche” genres basically junk) and now “broadcast” TV is being transformed. Indeed, the boundaries that used to separate movies from mere TV have all but disappeared. Cost in money terms has gone up because advertising revenue isn’t the business model. Turns out people will pay so as not to have to watch advertising. However, you may have noticed a trend to the development of TV advertising with inherent entertainment value…tha
The size of one magazine does not indicate the state of the hobby as a whole. There are a whole lot of other options to obtain information in this day and age, besides a monthly print magazine. And like most everything else, you either adapt or become extinct like a dinosaur.
Yes, MR always has gotten thinner once peak model railroad time has passed - hard to swallow for anyone who doesn;t consider there is such a thing as “model railroading season” but even now it’s sometimes hard to shake the situation I grew up in - we had no room in our house for a permanent layout, not really even a small switching one. So to me as a youngster, there most definitely model railroading season - it started around Thanksgiving and lasted until just past the New Year. That’s when the furniture in the family room got crammed together and the layout got set up. This seasonal thing is still more common than might be expected, hence more interest in publications about model trains in the Winter months. Also even with permanent layouts - many people prefer to spend time outdoors during the warmer seasons, not down in the basement or in what in some climates might be an uncomfortable space, so there’s still a seasonal aspedt to the hobby even for those with permanent layouts.
The time to worry is when the ads stop coming in. When advertisers find the revenue generated by a print ad isn’t comparing favorably to the cost of the ad, they will seek other ways to advertise, and the lack of ad revenue will kill a magazine.
There are two sides to this new month to month subscription model - if you do that, you the subscriber have no long term commitment. But the publisher, too, has no long term commitment. If everyone pays month to month, they can close up at the end of the curren tmonth and every subscriber has gotten what they paid for.
On line magazines are a tough sell too. Model Railroad Hobbyist is an on-line magazine and it has issues selling ads because the advertisers seem to prefer the targeted banner ads on websites vs a static ad in and on-line publication.
Magazines are simply easier to read in paper form. Can’t really explain it, but they are, IMO.
In the April issue, I noticed what I thought was a lack of content, not just less advertising compared to back in the day.
I saw one layout article, and one other significant article, the one about detailing tank cars.
There used to be two or three layouts per issues, one being the main feature layout and then one or two more lesser layout articles. And then a few more specialized articles.
And not to get too OT, in the end, the cost of me buying a printer, paper, and maintaing the digital infrastructure will result in higher overall cost to me and higher overall profit to the company.
Pushing down the costs, including time and labor, to the consumer is the real point of the digital age, IMO.
BTW, since everyone is working at home and companies are no longer going to rent office space, saving them money, are they going to pay every employee that money to have them fix up their home office, or will the company expect the employee to spend their own money to make their home work-friendly (including home wifi), and simply pocket the money they used to spend on rent and infrastructure?
Just like everything else, the pandemic has acelerated what was already happening. A lot of places stopped ordering magazines for their waiting rooms and a lot of librarys did the same. This along with less money in some households has cut deeply into subscriptions not to mention a few supply issues on all sides of the game. This is not “the hobby is dying” thing, the hobby is doing better than ever but some parts of the game are changing including the LHS. The LHS was affected the most due to people getting used to online. The LHS just can’t compeat for the most part, especially since the hobby is more diverse than ever and will continue to be so. Lets just talk the modern era, say from the 80’s on, so many nitches and new eras will continue as long as there are trains, I remember when there was talk of those going away but instead of going away they got more efficient.
Digital infratructure? Generally I’ve thought most have a computer and printer already - so that’s already there I’d guess. But I could be wrong. Where I see the cost of printing a magazine, or part of a magazine, at home is the silly high prices of color ink jet consumables, or color laser jet consumables. I got so tired of that rat race that my wife found a low cost b/w laser printer. It’s so much cheaper on consumables and most of the time b/w is just fine. No color ink cartridges to expire and the printer refuses to print. That ink jet merry go round was one I was glad to get off of. What a racket!
I wonder what percentage are “everyone”. Some maybe, but where I work, some IT systems I cannot work on from home. Same for most of the users I s