I can’t help noticing that a random survey of MR issues compared to the year-earlier issue seems to reflect a pretty consistent decline of 5% or so in total pages. For instance, the January 2002 issue had 170 pages; the January 2003 issue had 162. (The January 2000 issue had 210, something more like what we used to see for holiday period MRs.) October 2001 had 154 pages; October 2002 had 146. Like others who’ve expressed opinions here, I’ve let my own subscription expire, and I don’t buy all issues of MR at the hobby shop, so I don’t have a full set to compare.
Then I did a little quick arithmetic over page count in all magazines. Let’s say that MR averages 150 pages per month lately; let’s give RMC an average of 120 pages; and let’s say each of the other three monthly US model railroading magazines averages 60 pages each. That’s a total of about 450 pages of model railroad magazine a month. MR’s share of pages per month is about a third.
In the days some of us remember when MR and RMC were the only two mags, MR’s share of pages per month would have been well over half. Since the 1970s, several monthly magazines have come in to absorb some portion of this market, and interestingly, some of these magazines have survived for 20 years and more, with levels of production quality generally nowhere near as good as MR. Why hasn’t MR been able to clean their clock? If MR’s share of pages alone had remained consistent, you’d see monthly issues of MR in the 300 page range.
And ads aren’t duplicated among the mags. You see high-end brass suppliers advertising in the smaller mags, not MR, apparently because the ad buy elsewhere is a better buy – you reach more people willing to spend serious money on the hobby in the other mags, while MR sees a lot of low-end ads, schlock, and kitsch (and I notice a lot of the full-page ads in MR are cross-selling other Kalmbach products).
Is anyone at MR willing to comment on the future of the magazine? I can’t imagine
I have been a subsciber to MR for many years and I’m not about to stop. I also get Trains and all the annuals, but I also get RMC. In Australia, we have a locally produced magazine that is also a must have on my list (Australian Model Railway Magazine).
As editor of a club magazine that is produced monthly with 40 pages, colour and 160 copies a month, I can appreciate the amount of effort that goes into producing such magazines, my work is nothing compared to the big name mags.
No one forces anyone to buy anything, you either want it or you don’t. I don’t think Kalmbach ‘in general’ have gone down hill at all and know just how popular it is down here in Aus, and we pay around $12.00 an issue.
Ted is saying he likes MR, and I can’t disagree. But my question is why enough others have changed their minds that MR’s page count is declining. As an outside observer, this suggests to me that advertisers aren’t buying as many ads in MR as they did a year ago, and the year before that, etc. I may be wrong, which is why I’m wondering if someone from MR might be willing to comment.
Since my previous post, I double checked, and RMC for February 2002 had 122 pages; February 2003 also has 122 pages. If RMC were following the same pattern as MR, it would have only about 116 pages.
So this is an interesting question that’s brought about by hard data. We all would prefer that the hobby’s flagship publication be as healthy as possible, and in that I agree with Ted. But assuming the numbers aren’t that good, I’d be interested to hear why!
There probably is less advertising because of the state of the economy. Many of the discounters and internet retailers that took a lot of space in MR have reduced their advertising budgfets or have gone out of business. In terms of articles and other non-advertising content, MR seems to have maintained its high level of quality and in my humble opinion has actually improved over the past year.
But as I pointed out, RMC has kept even. So I think it’s worth asking how that happened – if some advertisers went under or cut their budgets, RMC was a lot luckier than MR. It may have nothing to do with articles, etc., but clearly RMC has done something, or hasn’t done something, that MR did, or didn’t, do.
If Kalmbach has on-the-ball managers, they’d have their circulation, ad pages, etc., graphed in detail, and graphed against the competition’s statistics and the economy. If they were publicly held, they’d have to account for their performance to Wall Street.
Since they aren’t publicly held, they nevertheless ought to be able to make some sort of public explanation, as I would guess that advertisers ask themselves what the benefit of each dollar spent in each magazine is. To an outside observer, for every guy who asks if his MR subscription is worth the bucks, an advertiser is likely asking if his ad is worth the bucks, and we’re seeing the result in decreased ad pages.
I certainly hope someone from MR can explain where I’m off base here.
OK John, I’m going to stick my kneck out with the results of a casual observation within the last half hour or so.
The medium we are using so freely at the moment could be part of the cause of the advertising decline in the printed media.
I have just received an N scale Life-Like Mallett from a local Brisbane Qld dealer, up to now, nothing has appeared in print regarding these engines that I have come across, yet I tagged onto N Scale Supplies web site and there was a full rundown of the locomotive, its quirks and its benefits.
The printed media unfortunately has a time lag in getting the advertising message across and as a lot of the retailers such as N Scale Supply provide so much information ‘immediately’ why should the advertising dollars go to what would seem the less effective way of the printed media?
‘Not’ everyone has the internet on so I would imagine advertising must be split resourcefully by still maintaining a printed outlet to some degree, but there are a lot of dedicated model railroad magazines out there to spread the dollar amongst, and I would imagine they all market their own benefits as to why advertisiers should select them. I don’t have any idea how advertising budgets and/or costs are tabulated, but I imagene it would be tough.
I still stand by the fact that ‘my’ opinion is that MR is still the bible of model railroading and although the ads and reviews appear well behind the net, I still prefer the hard printed copy that I can keep and treasure.
A more significant comparison – which I am NOT about to undertake by the way! – would be a column inches count. There were some internet advertisers for a couple years there who could be counted on for full page ads and they have disappeared. Also some advertisers are now taking out small ads and advertising a webpage.
For some years I was a regular writer for a couple of specialty magazines (not rail or model related at all) and I can tell you – times right now are TOUGH in the magazine trade (costs are up, ad revenues down) and in some ways it is surprising that the entire model railroad press has survived as well as it has. MR and RMC have some resources but some of the other magazines survive I am sure due to the grit and determination of one or two people - Randy Lee, Robert Hundman, etc. From the standpoint of choice and information and quality printing and layout we have never had it so good.
I think most modelers get MR and/or RMC and then try to buy one of the other mags on a regular basis. It can get expensive but face it no one magazine is going to give you exactly the content you want month after month.
By the way check out the latest NMRA Bulletin for the really horrific decrease in membership that is reported – in light of that the loss of a few pages from MR is not worth worrying about
Dave Nelson
I have the same gripe about Trains magazine. While the cost of a subscription has gone up 30 dollars a year since I first started reading it, the actual “readers content” has remained the same, or diminished. I flip through WAY too many pages of ads, only to find a monthly magazine that I can read in less than one hour. Yes, the color pictures are a big improvement over the Trains magazine of the early 1970’s, But aside from that, I don’t see my extra 30 bucks worth. Besides, with the magazine almost half advertisement, it seems that THAT alone would cover any “extra costs”. I don’t care what your income is, 40 dollars is a bit high for an annual magazine subscription. I’ve thought about dropping my sub. several times, but, I guess I’m “hooked”.
I’m not sure, and I don’t really think the page count of the MR directly reflects the success of the magazine. The decline in advertising pages in the magazine may reflect two things; the shift of publication expenses to the subscriber and the effects of efficiency which in turn lowers the requirement for advertisers. Granted, the more advertisers the better for MR but I also think they may be aware that the ratio of advertisers to articles is noticed by the readers. I would suspect they have to ration the articles to each monthly publication in order to keep the magazine alive with a steady flow of material.
Your analysis didn’t really focus on what was reduced in MR with the page count, advertising or articles.
I have been subscribing to MR for about 18 years now and have had subscriptions to the other magazines off and on as well. It seems MR is more of a cross the board generalist on the hobby while the other magazines get further down in the weeds than I really care to or have time to go. The depth of the coverage would certainly dictate who reads it thus advertisers go where their products are considered.
As far as share of pages per month among the magazines. That may not be a valid means of magazine success because it is comparing different levels of interest. It would also be difficult to pick apart because we don’t know how many subscribers would be counted in the readership to more than one magazine.
MR may respond to our curiousity but then they may be cautious to give away their trade secret of product mix.
Yes, MR is in decline. Can you say Model RR Planning? How about Classic Toy Trains or Garden Railways? These are all topics that used to be covered in MR. Have you really looked at the articles and columns to see the changes over the past three or four years. 'Tain’t the same magazine my friend.
Why do you think Kalmbach came up with the ‘World’s Greatest Hobby’ program? Their subscriber base is beginning to dwindle as us old guys die off.
Besides, if the other mags hold readership, that readership has to come from somewhere if the subscriber base dwindles.
The World’s Greatest Hobby program interests me in this context. Clearly the assumption is that the hobby needs to draw in “beginners”, and somebody seems to have convinced MR that this is the right approach in their editorial policy, too. I would guess that the answer the MR staff has given to skeptics in Kalmbach has been that the demographics are against them, and they need to go out and rope in newbies off the street.
My answer would be that in the 25 years since Linn Westcott was Editor, the market for model railroad magazines has grown immensely, maybe by 5 times for monthly model railroad magazines alone, and this doesn’t count the technical and historical society journals, bimonthlies, etc.
Consider that RMC has been sleepwalking through mediocrity for some years, but it seems to keep up as a strong number 2 with little effort.
My own sense is that Kalmbach produces a product that is too bland, isn’t meant to be challenging, and is predictable and boring. Just look at the “forum” questions on this site. What’s my favorite railroad song??? How old do you think I am?
Unfortunately inflation affects everything. I noticed in the “Editorial Flashback” page of the Feb. 2003 MR, the cover they show says “September 1970, 60 cents”. Well, to raise that price in 1970 to $4.95 in 2003 requires an inflation rate of just 6.6%. That’s probably not out of line with a lot other costs you deal with. I still consider MR worth the price I pay for it. I’d love to be able to get it for $1 an issue, but only magazines with subscriptions in the millions can afford to discount them that deeply.
Hey Dave, just what is that “really horrific decrease in membership” numbers? Those of us who bailed out of NMRA following their financial fiasco of the last couple of years sure can’t check out the latest Bulletin to see. I was a 20 year member and a staunch supporter of the organization until it lost its mind on financial matters. I’ll never go back but would still be interested to hear what’s happened to them.
Actually, MR has recently been offering to discount subscriptions pretty deeply, something in the neighborhood of half price, which should be an indication of their interest in building circulation back up.
I would also guess that they are cutting major deals for the multiple full-page ads from firms like Rivarossi and Walthers, to judge from what we’re seeing.
A two-page ad in the January issue (haven’t looked carefully at the Feb, because there wasn’t enough in it to make me buy it) from Rivarossi advertising 40-year old cheapo schlock stuff, the plastic freight cars with the Talgo horn-hook couplers. I can imagine that Rivarossi will continue with this buy until they see how few sales result.
By the way, while my outside observer’s opinion is that Kalmbach’s business judgment is flawed in seeking readers who apparently don’t want to be challenged in the same way as, for instance, RMC’s readers, I would welcome a clear explanation from someone at MR or elsewhere on how their strategy is, in fact, good.
But overall it would seem to me that you’d also have to justify the various strategies of mainstream US media, or the US auto or steel industries, and show how losing business to the competition is a smart idea. I’m not saying it can’t be shown; I’d just like to have someone show me. This is why I’ve suggested several times here that someone from MR might want to explain what they’re doing.
Did I miss something, by the way, or is MR down in staff count? Over the past month or two, Paul Schmidt, former MR associate editor, is now a contributing editor to Trains.com and apparently living in the Pacific Northwest. If this was announced and I missed it, my apologies. But is this related to the issues of MR’s declining fortunes?
“Did I miss something, by the way, or is MR down in staff count? Over the past month or two, Paul Schmidt, former MR associate editor, is now a contributing editor to Trains.com and apparently living in the Pacific Northwest. If this was announced and I missed it, my apologies.”
Hello John,
My departure was announced in the February issue of MR along with the announcement of Carl Swanson’s addition to the staff.
Last spring my wife and I decided to return home. Moving to Wisconsin was extremely difficult for her and the cost in terms of her happiness was not worth, to me, having my name in MR’s masthead. We made the move in August, then I came back to Kalmbach for a couple weeks before driving back to Washington in mid-September. I’m grateful that the opportunity to work for Trains.com from my home office came together when it did.
Paul, thanks for the explanation. It’s good that things seem to have fallen in place for you and your wife.
Though, even if every explanation for every staff change at MR is just as serendipitous, there sure have been a lot of them lately. I just finished a book on how the Chandler family gave up control of the Los Angeles Times, and in the late phases of that process, members of the Times staff referred to those on the masthead as the “Flying Wallendas” due to the speed with which the changes occurred. Reminds me a little of MR.
It also appears that at least some folks at Kalmbach read these posts, whether or not they commment.
As a resident of LA and close follwer of the Chandler family–in my humble opinion, there is no way you can compare the Times to MR because the Times and its sister publications have had a 30 year decline because they lost touch with their constituent audience. I don’t believe that MR has done that.
Humm. A number of folks here, not just me, have posted to the effect that MR changed greatly about 1977, when Linn Westcott retired, and it began to go disco or something, with Malcolm Furlow and so forth, such that other mags were able to pick up the money MR was leaving on the counter. Just take one example, Prototype Modeler, which capitalized on the desire of the modeling community in the late 1970s for more accurate models from the manufacturers. MR ignored the trend – while Prototype Modeler eventually went under, Mainline Modeler survives with a very similar focus, as does Railmodel Journal. Between them these are 150-160 monthly pages – a magazine the size of MR – carrying ads MR often doesn’t carry. I would say this represents 25 years, if not 30, of losing touch with an audience.
I just remembered the hilarious editorial in Prototype Modeler in – it must have been 1984 – when the PM staff sent in their money to attend the big conference MR set up to celebrate their 50th anniversary. MR ostentatiously returned the PM money and applications, saying they felt PM was a competitor and therefore should not attend the MR conference. You could not have asked for a better illustration of MR’s own admission of what they’d created.
