I just received the July 2021 issue of Model Railroader.
The total pages are 68!(included front and back cover)
This in sharp contrast that some issues, years ago, have more than 150 pages.
It is sad to see this happen.
The question is: is model railroading in decline?
looks like they are ready for your article…
They have been in the thin side lately, but I found this issue had several articles that I found interesting. Normally I read through it once, but this issue I’ve looked at several times!
As you have noted, the magazine has certainly been getting thinner. But keep in mind of the enormous amount of info contained in these fourms, which you can fully participate in, for free with a subscription.
I have “saved to favorites” about 160 post discussions that are of specific interest to me; and if you equate each thread to a magazine article, that adds up to a lot of “magazine content”… just in a different format.
Jim
Add a couple YouTube channels and… who needs a magazine?
Model railroading is not in decline. Print media are having a great deal of trouble with their business model. Same thing happened to the recorded music business and is happening to the movie and tv industries. The consumer is to blame. Business only supplies what consumers want, or more accurately what consumers think they want. That’s the problem.
Joni Mitchell said it: don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.
Yeah, I can’t remember the last time I watched a non-sports event on Network television. I’m not a slave to anyone’s TV schedule.
I noticed an article the other day about the enthusiasm that Covid restrictions have brought to model railroading. While print media may be in decline, overall the hobby seems healthy.
The magazine problems are because magazines are in decline and also mismanagment. The magazine people don’t know how to monitise the forums and want all their submitals the old fasioned way instead of reaching out to people with ideas etc. and cultivating their imput, afterall this is a hobby community and not a bunch of would be writers, for the most part. I toyed with the idea of submitting an article or two but the hoops they put you through without even saying they will print if you deliver the goods, they say they will file acceptical articles and they may or may not be printed and the time frame was many many years when I first looked into it.
Our hosts have recently embarked on a new business model, as almost all of us must realize by now. I think, can’t be sure, that they may be getting ready to go full digital with an easing period. The newer generation of modeler is a phone jockey. They order out for almost all meals, socialize via the internet when they’re not seated across a table from each other, and often resort to that default anyway when they are seated across from each other. No eye contact is de rigueur.
Yes, most of us old fogies still want the latest issue in the rack beside the john, especially if the primary purpose of the visit takes the typical old man’s entire morning to accomplish satisfactorily. But they could/should cut out the paper issue before long with a sizeable inducement, AKA, new price…and I don’t mean one with shipping and handling added.
Yes, they are moving toward full digital. But why? Have you noticed the lack of big ads lately? I mean seveal page ads. Hmmmm.
I could easily live with a digital edition, with an important caveat. Our local paper includes digital with print, and the digital format is very easy to read / navigate. If a digital MR was like that, I would enjoy it. Several years ago I looked at older online MR issues and the format and readability was poor IMO.
My guess also is that it’s just a matter of time. Hope they do it right. I do get more from the forum than from the mag, but that’s me. I enjoy both.
Kalmbach in general seems to be totally inept at dealing with the modern on-line world. They want to charge a ridiculous amount for access to old and mostly useless (other than perhaps interesting as historical items) information, along with access to generally but not always near-professionally done videos, all of which you lose access to as soon as you stop paying over and over for it every month.
They must hate guys like me, who have the bulk of all back issues and don’t really “need” access to their archives.
They’re as full of themselves as some of those YouTube modelers who try to charge up to about $5 a month for a “badge” on video comments and “priority” responses to those comments, plus a few extra minutes of video that people watching for free can’t see. Most of them are finding that only a few people are that gullible.
And worst of all is the crappy way they treat their customers, on full display in how they screwed over their MRVP subscribers in the months before the Trains.com launch mess.
I agree with Mr. Hensley 100%. At one time there were ads covering as many as four pages for such advertisers as Standard Hobby Supply, Hobbies for Men, Trainworld/Trainland and others I can’t recall at the moment, in the same magazine issue. America’s Hobby Center used to own the pages right after the table of contents and Varney and later, Pacific Fast Mail had the back cover. Where are they now? Those remaining are now on the internet. The rest are non-existant.
In today’s world, we are getting notified directly by the manufacturer or importer of what is new, by e-mail. No more drooling over a magazine ad that may be out of date by the time you get the magazine. You drool over your still warm key board as you order directly from the purveyor, as soon as you see the item, cutting out all “middle people”. You now order from an internet business that has the item stock level right on the website. No more mailing in your order, not knowing the item is not at hand, and no idea when it will be. This is contributing to less “magazine”, but I like it.
We already have a digital-only magazine that is too much into the electronics-vs-the-trains for my taste but I have the option to go elsewhere so, I do. If/when MR goes digital only, goodbye to it as well. I like something can read anwhere. I like prototype information which is also in short supply these days. If you’re one of the companies that paints model GG-1s for the Santa Fe, you wouldn’t like to see meaningful product reviews of new car and locomotive releases. Such information as appropriate era, actual owners/operators, numbers series, date last in service should be staples of any publication that purports to serve the modeler but, all we get are the non-critical “the paint is smooth and it has a nice brakewheel” hogwash.
When
Another magazine, which I will not name, was launched all digital/online from the start. They relied on, as hard copy magzines do, advertizing to cover much of the cost of publishing. It worked for a while as many companies would advertise via their online magazine. But in the last several years that online revenue has been drying up because companies have realized they don’t have to pay for advertising, or at least they can greatly reduce their advertising costs by advertising via FaceBook, forums and other free methods.
So you have loss of advertising revenue and also hard copy magazines have been losing readership in favor of online sources of information, articles and review. It’s tough times for hard copy magazines, as well as digital only. I expect eventually our old friend MR magazine and it’s forum may one day shut down.
Counting number of pages never occured to me. Magazine is fine imo. I have noticed over the years the decline of those full page mail order adds as pre-ordering has become a “thing”. This is one of the two mags I still subscribe to in hard copy. Collectable Automobile is the only other mag I get . The online versions don’t come close to the mag as far as I’m concerned. Still enjoy reading these from cover to cover then saving them for reference material.
I’ve been thinking for several years now that the paper magazines may be going away. Lately, the magazine is almost becoming an ad for their digital services. The magazine has less to print because, face it, they themselves are migrating content from the magazine to online services you can’t access without additional fees. No thanks.
I usually browse the web on a tablet, roughly 4x7 inches. It’s bigger than a phone, but it’s too big to carry around. My desktop is upstairs, but my “beer reefer” is down here in the kitchen. If the full page format of magazines is migrated from paper to digital, I probably won’t bother anymore. I typically don’t like narrated video as a way of conveying information. I don’t watch newscasts with audio. Really, I don’t need a newsreader standing in front of a police station when it’s quicker to just give me a story to read. No one else in the household cares to hear model train videos, either.
Suppose I want to sit out on the beach or by the pool and read? Did you ever try to read from a tiny screen in the sun on a bright day?
Narrated video (as in TV newscasts for example) is a terrible way to convey information. The invention of books replaced narrated video…that would be Socrates (or the village idiot) explaining yet again what just happened. So far nobody has improved on “the book” since Gutenberg and he wasn’t the first guy to think of making copies.
You get an hour newscast to convey on a one time only basis stuff a newspaper delivers in about five minutes and you can get up for a beer halfway through the newspaper and miss nothing. Mind you the same thing happens while watching TV but for a different reason.
I think our attention span has shrunk thanks to youtube and short video clips on various sites.
MR does how to articles with references to a number of postage stamp size pictures. What ever they are trying to show, I can’t see.
Some of us will never be converted to reading a magaizine on a cell phone or a tablet.
There is competion on Youtube, from people who are quick to review a new model, or post their creative work and how they do it. Some of those are pretty darn good. Bottom line, they are faster, the visual quality is better than a magazine and they are focused on one topic. They don’t have to be everthing to to everyone.
All print magazines are in trouble. People want instant gratification. My son sells internet service and companies particularly small business which takes in most hobby sellers and manufacturers do pay considerable amounts for things like being listed first or near the top of search. Anything relying on the USPS is in trouble. Want to add some operating interest to your railroad? Add a printing plant that produces weekly magazines. The prr had priority mail and express trains and dedicated B60b and R50 express cars serving this priority industry. No more.
I love the magazine, no matter the size.
I love the forum, no matter the topic.
I have no problem with the ads, the number of pages, or the articles’ content.
Maybe I’m easy to please.