HOT ROD Magazine is at it again.

I just got an offer in the mail for a 2 year sub for 12.00. Wow that's only 50 cents an issue. I think I'll take advantage of it. Friedburger seems to be doing a good job.

BB

 

yes , it's so cheap , why not get it..and they seam to be getting better

and Rod & Custom is only about $14 a year , or two years for $25

so , why is Street Rodder , with ****loads of advertisers and put out by the same publishers so expensive?

 

Don't say that! I saw that Freebird is on here.... you're going to swell his ego to ten times its normal size.



But seriously, I agree.... I had abandoned HRM comepletely until Frieberger put some fire back in the tank. And if he and Primedia are smart, I hope they're looking what it will take to survive in the digital age, whether that be a print magazine or an online subscription, or what. One advantage they could have with an online format is they could start to use video streaming. Think how cool it would be if they could toss up nostalgia racing clips, video of their build-ups, or even interviews with the "old guard".

 

First R&C, and now Hot Rod. I think Frieberger has done a great job balancing new versus old tech, and he has actually made HR a magazine I would consider subsribing to again. You can't beat the price.

 

>"I think David F. is an incredible talent. I've also heard that Aaron Khan has recently taken a spot at R&C. He is an artistic genius... Will be fun to see what he does..."

According to his Dad he's the new art director for R & C.

One of his most recent works (along with three others) was the coffee table Von Dutch book which is a real keeper.

 

One other side note - I think that Robert Williams is his uncle - not a bad influence at all....

 

I think it's not so much a case of magazine subscriptions being hurt by the internet as much as subscription numbers being diluted by the sheer number of different magazines to subscribe to. How many street rod magazines were there 20 years ago, versus how many today? 20 years ago, it was Hot Rod, Car Craft, Popular Hot Rodding and a few others. If you were a Ford guy, there was Super Ford, and the new kid on the block was Mustang Monthly. Mopar magazines? None. So you subscribed to a Ford magazine, and Hot Rod for tech and features. If you were a Mopar guy, you subscribed to Hot Rod and Car Craft. Now there are 8 or 10 Ford magazines, so you don't need to Hot Rod. There are four Mopar magazines, so you don't need the others.
Most niche magazines today are spin-offs of Hot Rod; 4x4 magazines started with HRM, muscle car magazines started with HRM, Mustang magazines spun off of HRM. The founder of Dobbs Publishing started a Mustang newsletter on his kitchen table. For the 25th (I think...maybe it was the 20th) anniversary of the Mustang, Hot Rod devoted an issue to Mustangs, and Larry advertised in it. Because of that issue of Hot Rod, he got bags of mail for months, subscribing to his little Mustang Monthly. How many of those guys, over time, left Hot Rod and subscribed to Mustang Monthly?
Custom Cl***ic Trucks, Cl***ic Trucks, Truckin', etc. also were spin-offs of Hot Rod et al. The core magazines realize that certain issues with niche-specific tech and features did really well, so they do a one-shot issue, it does well, they make it quarterly, and eventually it's a stand-alone ***le. Mopar Muscle spun off of a Muscle Car Review one-shot. Muscle Car Review was created to compete in the market started by Petersen's muscle car magazine at the time (now defunct), which was started as a spin-off of one of the core magazines.

The whole "the internet is going to be the death of print media" has been going on for a long while now. It won't happen.
Why?
Because you can't take a laptop into the ****per with you. There are other reasons, but that boils it down pretty well.
The said Television would be the death of books, radio and movies.
The other mediums have changed, certainly, but they're a long way from being dead.

When I go on trips in airplanes and go out of town on business, I buy magazines and newspapers. When I go eat lunch every day, I buy newspapers. When I go on long trips in the car, I buy mags and papers. Commuters buy them for the ride into work.
Magazines are portable. We don't typically whip out the laptop to show a buddy a feature or tech article when we're in the garage bench racing.

Primedia hurt themselves a few years ago because they diverted a ton of resources to the internet in an effort to make money on it, forgetting what brought them to the dance. The key for niche and leisure publications to make money on the web is to drive people to your core business; selling magazines. The web should augment the print, not the other way around.

What the internet is hurting, is television. Your screen time is now used surfing your favorite websites, rather than watching shows you're moderately interested in. We still have our list of "Must watch" shows, but it's probably not as many shows as it used to be.

(or, we do it at work like I am now...Hmmm...maybe I should go now)
-Brad

 

it's $10 for a year on the site, but i bet if you call you can get the deal mentioned above. I've done that before to get a better deal.

 

Yep, I second Brad's thoughts there . . . I'm a computer nut, we have multiple laptops and wireless connections, so I could read anything from anywhere . . . but it's still a lot easier to pickup a magazine, stick it in the briefcase or under the arm (for the one holer) and then read it. I can see specialty Internet sites helping magazines more than I can destroying them. The magazine guys and newspapers have all gotten into the having stuff online . . . but I think applying a little of the blog and readership two way street ideas would greatly improve things. A local TV channel just opened up new web prescence and their big thing is blogs for anyone to post their info online.

 

You got that right, the problem is to really survive the long run, they need to be in front of the "technology" 8-ball...which means switching from 1 extreme culture to the other. Some are doing OK...others are not....

Although, i have to say that its not as bad as everyone thinks it is.....especially for "niche" publications.....ad revenue and distribution numbers arent down that much and i dont see a super sloping trend, ive seen them go up the past few years as much as they went down.

 

I hope the entire Primedia line of magazines dies a painful and expensive death.

Primedia is like the Wal Mart of publishing.

 

The term "tipping point" comes to mind.

Like Ryan said, newspapers were the first to feel the internet hurricane... with the intertubes, what value does a newspaper offer? Thru the intertubes you can get better quality (and up to the minute) news, opinions, sports & financials for free. Services like Monster.com, Craig's List, eBay, autotrader.com and Realtor.com have totally destroyed any reason for thumbing thru the dead-tree cl***ifieds. The ONLY reason we still have a Chicago Tribune newspaper subscription is for the Sunday coupon & sales inserts. Financially the NYTimes, Tribune Co, Gannett etc are deadmen walking.

Same thing is now happening in the magazine bidness; why the hell anybody still subscribes to Time or Newsweek is beyond me. Just filler for magazine racks at the dentist's office I guess.

That leaves the special interest magazine biz, such as Primedia. Since their product is targeted at a high-involvement niche, they've be able to withstand internet compe***ion better than others. But that won't last forever. More and more, advertisers are subs***uting for pixels for ink --- "follow the eyeballs" -- as enthusiasts find outstanding online content, like the HAMB.

Kinda sad, as I really enjoy what HRM has done under Frieberger... I am a faithful subscriber, and you can't beat $0.50/issue. Still, longterm it will be difficult for the mag business to avoid the serious financial challenge of the internet.

 

LOL . . . the Walmart of advertising? Isn't Primedia just doing on a grander scale what is trying to be accomplished here also? They're trying to make a buck and put out a quality product. Once you get people hooked and keep them coming through the doors, cut prices (anyway possible) and then keep your volume up. Adding to the dynasty by buying up or creating new niches . . . hmm. As long as their is money in a p***ion, there is always going to be something to go astray.

 

Times are also changing -- but that's been happening since the dawn of media . . . from radio to tv . . . to the Internet. Radio could do what the newspaper's couldn't . . . but they were different. TV changed things again . . . and again . . . things changed. The newspapers that will thrive are complimenting their print with different things -- local KC Star has new printing press and operations . . . beatiful print with USA Today type look and feel . . . but they're using online to suppliment by having indepth coverage, more photos, even video. I don't know that people are leaving newspaper in droves just for online options . . . there's a lot of people that just don't care anymore about things. What sound bite they get on the evening news is just about good enough for what they want to know. Sad, but true.

 

Like i said before, ad revenues and copy numbers arent down a whole lot at my company to say we are even close to danger....they have been worse before, and they go up and down, but I must say while we are technically a "print media" publishing company, there isnt really much room to grow in that area althought there will always be a market for it. its been jammed down our throats that we are not an electronic media company, and now with a new CEO lets just say our culture is just starting to change a little.

I wouldnt go as far to say online budgets have increased significantly. Actually ours is constantly being reduced...sometimes in upwards of 20% (especially through outsourcing)

Ryan, I think you hit the nail on the head with being able to compliment each other. If you look at it though, most major newpaper companies (i cant speak for magazines) do have diverse markets that compliment each other, albiet most of the time noone realizes it.

NYT bought about.com for something like 410million, Dow Jones has wall street journal, a bunch of mags and papers, wsj.com (largest online pay news site), we have newswires (electronic) marke****ch.com, etc. etc.

the QUALITY of the information has a lot to do with it too. For instance our company has the largest pay for news site....I think our website is more expensive than our newspaper.

 

All print media are hurting now, internet is the major cause, along with our current economy. Working for a newspaper I see first hand the hard times we are experiencing. Believe me, it's the worst I've seen in my 30 years here. We have had several advertising people leave for other careers lately, if they're not selling they're not earning a living. I just hope we continue to print newspapers for 10 maybe 15 more years.

I sent my Hot Rod card in this morning.

 

I can guarantee that Dave is working his *** off, wearing 3 or 4 hats to get Hot Rod out each month. The money he is making is probably decent at best. I'm guessing the only things keeping him in the editors chair are p***ion for the hobby and keeping the Hot Rod name alive with some sort of dignity... a job I feel he is doing very well.

 

I subscribed to the LA Times for decades, until a couple years ago when I started getting "$52 past due for last %&&#JD subscription period" on an almost monthly basis.
What used to be $2.75 a month turned into over a $600 a year subscription and about all I got out of it that I didn't hear them "read" on FOX TV was the crossword puzzle that I got so good at I started and finished them while on the ****ter, (even after eating Mexican food, if ya know what I mean.)
So I cancelled it and got whining sals reps calling me asking "Why?" for the next year...
Actually they kept delivering the Sunday paper for the next six months, I guess because it was in the plastic bag with the free soap sample, which means I was always getting that issue "free" but was getting cherged for it too!
I Still buy the Sunday Times at the supermarket because it's cheaper than a TV GUIDE and TV GUIDE doesn't list the local stations anyway so it's useless...
Just says "check your local listings..."?
Does Primedia own TV GUIDE too?

Does this $10 offer have a box to check for extending an ongoing subscription or is it for new subs?
I sent one in years (decades?) ago for a mag and ended up getting double issues for about six months even though I wrote on the card to extend my current subscription.

What gets me is all the mags are using the "See more pictures of this car, bike, babe online at http://www.fukyerwallet.com/ "
And you gotta pay even more subscription to see them of course..

 

I like that...fits to a "T"...something for everyone and one size fits all...

R-

 

DrJ watches faux news? did i wake up in bizarro world?

 

This is the only topic EVERYONE has an opinion on and a knock about- yet let me hear one person that has COMPLETLY given up car magazines- even glimpsing a buddies mag or taking a peek at the newstand. Until then I always take these armchair editor comments with a huge grain of salt and a chuckle. Please list your occupations and the companies you work for and I will try and muster an opinion why they do not meet with my personal approval and affect me personally. Thanks Jim

An apology goes out WAYY in advance for those that cannot read sarcasm in a typed post, because for those "sarcasm challanged" THIS IS SARCASM- hope that's clear.

 

Doh, is that my conscious talking???

 

Bring back that post where the people were REALLY upset about the subscription cards and how they were ruining their lives. I picture ROOMS FULL of these annoyances and multiple paper cuts from the ever present pieces of paper.

 

The Irony of it all is that now is the Halcyon days for Boyd, Chip, and other high-end car builders, where theyare getting unprecedented exposure, and more and more money is being spent in the "Car Culture", yet readership continues to dwindle in the print media ***ociated with that industry. Have shows like "American Hot Rod" and "Rides" supplanted people's desire to READ? My Nine-year-old is considered a freak at school because he has read the collected works of Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Jules Verne, not to mention numerous periodicals we subscribe to for him. We have become so placated by the TV that few know how to spell their way through a paragraph because their parents put so little emphasis on the Importance of READING. I'm happy with the rise of internet publications (as opposed to TV) because while interactive, they force the viewer to read what is on the screen.

 

Yo la gh, b t it's no f nny when yo ha e a fin er amp tated by a s bscription card.

 

This embodies the essence of comedy....And it's funny, too.