Opened up my new August edition of Model Railroader and came to a full page letter to subscribers from the owner of Firecrown Media, Craig Fuller.
Interesting read, and he certainly sounds encouraging - so my fingers are crossed. Time will tell.
What sounds encouraging?
Not shuttering the print magazines and plans to keep the forums and upgrade them “to ensure their stability and functionality”.
That’s more encouraging than having him unveil plans to scrap everything.
The other thing in his letter that I found interesting is the statement that younger people are switching back to print media. That would seem to buck the trends that seem to be currently running. But even with that, time will tell.
Yea there is a trend of old is new again. Vinyl records are back, even cassetts are making a comeback, it seems people deal with tech all day and they want a break during lesisure time.
Contrary to what digital publications would like you to believe, print publications are not doing all that badly. Book sales in paricular are still quite strong, and while magazine sales have dropped by nearly half, the numbers appear to have stabilized in the last few years.
Some things just seem to do better in a physical presentation, and quite a few companies have suffered by forgetting that humans like physical things. Some online retailers (coughAmazoncough) bet a lot of money thinking that humans would not go back to in-person shopping after 2020.
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When I saw the full page announcement, my first thought, after 90 years MRR comes to an end. I was encouraged by the message. Time will tell, but the sale looks like a positive move.
Yes, time will tell. The magazine has shrunk over the years as advertising revenue from the print format has decreased. But, y’know what? I would notice and read the ads in the magazine, while digital ads generally get ignored. With the change in ownership, I’ve been reluctant to subscribe again and have let my magazine subscription lapse. I don’t subscribe to the digital stuff. I think one of the best things the new owners could do would be to get more advertising to support a thicker magazine.
It has been my fear for several years now that Kalmbach was planning to go all-digital and eliminate the print magazine entirely. It’s good to know that it will continue. I’ll probably pick up a few copies at my LHS before going with another subscription.
You have to realize that one simply can’t “get” more advdertising. There is only a certain demand for it. If the demand goes up, then you can add more. But if the demand goes down, you can’t simply create more. Besides, look at the number of larger companies that are no longer with us. The smaller, start-ups, may not be in a position to advertise.
You can’t pricing either. That may allow some newer clients to come onto the pages of MR but it also lessens the revenue generated by those who are already there.
Advertising is a tough business; just look at the number of daily newspapers that have folded over the years. 
dlm
Thanks all for getting me curious about how MR continues to thrive in a digital age. Electronic media has its place, but the print magazine still contnues to draw interest from readers.
One reason for sustained interest in print magazines is some experience digital fatigue. This makes sense since some (like myself) do not enjoy reading online. Also, peole still use libraies for checking out books. I do! Time will tell about what happens with MR’s print version.
I will also add that based on the media it sounds like they are interested in potentially having a lower profit margin per magazine if it means bigger magazine/more subscribers, that seems to be what they did with the other print magazines the company owns. Will be interesting to see what that means for MR.
I prefer to read a printed magazine but by the time I get it the ads and product announcements are all outdated. I’ve already seen most of them online and many new products are already sold out. Even some of the feature articles have been available online.
Mark Vinski
True, but you can adjust advertising rates to make print media more attractive. There’s a cost associated with digital media, too, remember. Each potential advertiser needs to make those decisions for himself.
Yeah, it’s sad that the MR magazine must compete against the MR digital presence, but at least there aren’t a lot of choices like in news print sources.
Hi,
I meant to respond to this thread when it came out, but Hurricane Beryl side tracked me for a week.
The MR Letter sounded really good, and its fairly obvious the author has good intentions and logic. I love that he recognizes the value of the printed page, and for those of us that subscribe, this is a godsend.
Also, it appears that he realizes that MR (and Trains, CT, CTT) have a good handle on things and he will not come in and “re-design the wheel”.
So I do believe we need to be patient, have faith, and for those of you that don’t subscribe, its time for you to do so.
It will take more than that for nonsubscribers to subscribe.
There are two groups of nonsubsribers, those of us who subscribed at one time and those who never did subscribe.
Speaking for myself as a former subscriber, I dropped my subscription for all of the reasons cited on this forum and the “other forum”. I essentially became bored with the magazine and its content. It arrived once a month and after browsing through it for 10 minutes or so, I shelved it.
Here is one of the problems with the full page letter from Firecrown in the MR magazine. If you aren’t a subscriber, like me, you haven’t read it because, to my knowledge, it is nowhere to be found except in the magazine. Some subscriber ought to post the full letter here because, for whatever the reason, Firecrown has chosen not to publish the letter on this forum.
It seems to me that if Firecrown is looking to increase subscriptions to the magazine, what better place to publish the letter than here on its public forum, visible to forum members and non-forum members alike.
At this stage of the game, why would any nonsubscriber decide to subscribe right now? Because a new owner took over? I think that the most likely way that subscriptions will increase will be after changes are made and reviews are published someplace such as here on the forum. At that point, I would expect that modelers like myself will pick up a copy at the newstand and browse through it to determine whether a subscription is in order.
Rich
[quote user=“richhotrain”]
mobilman44
So I do believe we need to be patient, have faith, and for those of you that don’t subscribe, its time for you to do so.
It will take more than that for nonsubscribers to subscribe.
There are two groups of nonsubsribers, those of us who subscribed at one time and those who never did subscribe.
Speaking for myself as a former subscriber, I dropped my subscription for all of the reasons cited on this forum and the “other forum”. I essentially became bored with the magazine and its content. It arrived once a month and after browsing through it for 10 minutes or so, I shelved it.
Here is one of the problems with the full page letter from Firecrown in the MR magazine. If you aren’t a subscriber, like me, you haven’t read it because, to my knowledge, it is nowhere to be found except in the magazine. Some subscriber ought to post the full letter here because, for whatever the reason, Firecrown has chosen not to publish the letter on this forum. It seems to me that if Firecrown is looking to increase subscriptions to the magazine, what better place to publish the letter than here on its public forum, visible to forum members and non-forum members alike.
At this stage of the game, why would any nonsubscriber decide to subscribe right now? Because a new owner took over? I think that the most likely way that subscriptions will increase will be after changes are made and reviews are published someplace such as here on the forum. At that point, I would expect that modelers like myself will pick up a copy at the newstand and browse through it to determine whether a subscription is in order.
Rich
The discussion here is about a letter published by Firecrown in a recent issue of Model Railroader magazine. You don’t need a YouTube video to publish a lettter. And why would you use a video to publish a letter. I would like to read the letter.
Regarding the forum, at least until recently, there were thousands and thousands of views, a heckuva lot more views than posts. That tells me that there are a whole lot of people interested in model railroading who have not read the letter and apparently have no way to read the letter short of going out and buying the magazine.
As for a video, if it wasn’t for the fact that I read on this forum, on this thread, that Firecrown published a letter in MR magazine, how would I know that there would be a video talking about the content of the letter. Given the demographic of model railroaders in general, it is a generational thing. Most of us don’t go surfing the net looking for videos. Firecrown is missing a potential opportunity by not posting the letter on this forum.
Rich
Perhaps they’ve tried Rich, but keep getting the 504 time out!
On a more serious note, I do find it rather ironic, and sad, that basically everything that I’ve learned about Firecrown has been sourced from the other Forum.[sigh]
[2c] Cheers, the Bear.[:)]
[quote user=“richhotrain”]
AEP528
The new owner has taken a much better approach - he has given video interviews that are posted on YouTube. And posted on accounts that are closely associated with other publications.
Trying to attract new subscribers through written word doesn’t work. Getting their attention through videos does. It took a totally digital publication (MRH) years to come to that realization. And MRH also acknowledges that the active forum posters also represent only a small fraction of their subscribers. That’s why they put best of the forum links in the magazine. They’re trying to drive forum users via the magazine, not magazine subscribers via the forum.
The discussion here is about a letter published by Firecrown in a recent issue of Model Railroader magazine. You don’t need a YouTube video to publish a lettter. And why would you use a video to publish a letter. I would like to read the letter.
Regarding the forum, at least until recently, there were thousands and thousands of views, a heckuva lot more views than posts. That tells me that there are a whole lot of people interested in model railroading who have not read the letter and apparently have no way to read the letter short of going out and buying the magazine.
As for a video, if it wasn’t for the fact that I read on this forum, on this thread, that Firecrown published a letter in MR magazine, how would I know that there would be a video talking about the content of the letter. Given the demographic of model railroaders in general, it is a generational thing. Most of us don’t go surfing the net looking for videos. Firecrown is missing a potential opportunity by not posting the letter on this forum.
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I think the assumption is, if you’re using the MR or Trains forums, you read the magazine. Both have the letter from Craig Fuller in the front of the August issues.
AFAIK he hasn’t posted the letter in a video, but has done at least one interview with a model railroad YouTuber, Ken Patterson (who you may know from all his advertising photos, particularly for Bachmann, and MR/RMC articles).
What’s Neat This Week in Model Railroading #275 May 18th 2024 (youtube.com)