Phlip

Me too. Except I still do fly rubber F/F, and C/L. The only thing I sometimes get tired of is the electric stuff, but I usually enjoy reading about it, even if I'll never do it.

And, my age isn't that advanced ... only 44.

Me too.

littlecrankshaf

My Feedback: (58)

Of course, I guess you know, technically your grammar in the above was not correct either.

STLPilot

My Feedback: (21)

Who would actually pay money to take away ads? The ads save money to consumers because in many cases they reflect a lot of sales and give information where you can find your next new plane.

In the begining of each and every magazine there is an index with page numbers that show where the articles are. Is it that confusing?

F106A

My Feedback: (2)

Sorta like satellite radio, I pay $12.95/ month for no commercials. You sure do get used to it. When I take the other car, there's 15 minutes straight of nothing but commercials. I'd never go back to "free radio".
I'd pay extra for a mag with no ads, just articles and commentary.
Untill someone puts out a Consumer Reports type of mag for modelers, they'll have ads.

STLPilot

My Feedback: (21)

Right, this is why they came up with the glossary in the front so you can skip right to the page that you want to read. You can't do that with free radio.

KidEpoxy

Some folks would consider that "Glossary" to be the table of contents... its even labeled as Contents.
Hey, this is fun.... no wonder folks gripe about other's grammar. I wanna do another, somebody say something

You know whats better than being told how many pages of ads top skip to get top the article you want? Not having ads that have to be skipped... and not having full page ads in the middle of a construction article to require more page flipping back & forth as you read and reread the instructions.

STLPilot

My Feedback: (21)

You'd wouldn't do to well walking around Times Square, all those scary ads would give you a heart attack. Heck I don't know how you handle driving down the road looking at all them pesky billboards too. Sheesh and 99.99999% of them are not RC related! How do you cope.

I mean come on ... now your just being ridiculous. Americans LOVE ads as a whole, love them. We are bred to read ads everywhere we go, get with the now man.

KidEpoxy

Walking down the street, I can walk unimpeded at full pace without some ad steping in front of me and demanding that I move it aside. If I am driving down the hiway, I can just keep doing 70 past the billboard, it requires no action for me to avoid it interfering with my progress. When I am reading how to cut the wing saddle, some stupid ad is taking up the entire bottom half of the page... where the rest of the saddle text should be. Oh, I have to move the ad out of the way with a page flip.... dang it, a Full Page Ad is after it, keep flipping... where the heck was I with the wing saddle.

Just look at the adds they put in the August MA for the Hughs Racer. While reading how to assemble the fuse, there is a 1/2page ad, a full page ad, another 1/2page ad, another full page ad, then a 1/4 page at the end of the instructions Just To Do The Fuselage! There is actually another full page add choking up the article, but it wasnt my Just Fuse Instructions example.

STLPilot

My Feedback: (21)

Chalk one up for marketing and business colleges around the world! Woohoo!

littlecrankshaf

My Feedback: (58)

Yea, right

aeajr

My Feedback: (2)

I find the ads valuable and informative.

SSRCCPREZ

Is this thread even serious? There are ads in EVERY FREAKIN MAGAZINE PRINTED!!!! My god people how freakin cheap can we be? One thread is the AMA is too expensive an they don't do enough, now we're being asked if we want to pay MORE for less ads........
I am seriousley concerned about the wellness of some people. NAme me one REAl magazine that is purchased that does not have ads init? Just one.

Also,remember something, in order to fulfill a REQUIREMENT to be a non-profit 501C3 tax exempt not for profit organization, the AMA is required to produce a newsletter distributed to it's members. This is a REQUIREMENT. So if they can offset the cost of this requirement by adding in ads therefore keeping the yearly dues down than great!!! MAke the whole thing cover to cover ads. reporters have to be paid, paper has to be bought, ink for the paper,reporters,editors,type setters,etc. etc. etc.
In case noone has ever told you, nothing is free in life and you really DO ge what you pay for.

bdavison

My Feedback: (1)

Id pay $6 bucks to see the magazine go away all together. It should be converted to an online publication. We spend money for the AMA website...why not combine the two.

Jim Thomerson

Screw the AMA members who have no computer. Fantatic good idea. [:'(]

Thomas B

My Feedback: (4)

Not comparing apples to apples, here.

While listening to "normal" radio, you are force fed the ad...it takes up air time and you cannot skip it and go to more content.
I have sat radio, too....and enjoy not having to listen to too many commercials

When the ads are in a magazine, you are not held at gunpoint and forced to read them...if you have no interest in the ad, you skim right by it...it takes nothing away from you, except sometimes fragmenting the articles a little.

I can live with the ads for a lower priced product, when I do not have to absorb the ads.

Hossfly

SSRC..., is your memory retention of the same time span of a lightening bolt? [sm=idea.gif] Or do you simply not really read all the posts that you argue with herein this forum?

That topic has been debated so many times that I thought all regulars except stl had finally gotten the message. If you go and review the annual audit reports of the AMA, there you can find plainly stated that some 95% of the advertising revenue is consumed in expense by the production of those ads within the magazine. Therefore the AMA member pays for 95% of the production of the remainder of the magazine -- all the text/graphics, etc., postage, distribution -- while non-member subscriptions help several percentage points.
In addition Member Dues cover all the "MA" Employee Staff since those people are accounted for under AMA Staff. There is no separate accounting for staff under "Model Aviation" Expense.
Basically if there were no ads, the total cost of MA would not be much greater to AMA, only a few thousand $$ more. Actually maybe less because at least 5-7 LESS people would be needed on staff.

Now go ahead and twist it / spin it any way you want, but however you do it differently, you are WRONG, as EVEN the auditors can't hide this fact. It's there for anyone that can read an audit report to plainly see. I've been bringing it to this forum for YEARS!
Where have you been?

depfife

My Feedback: (14)

If members like the ads and they are published as a service to those members and not to generate revenue, why not separate the ads from the articles? Put all the ads together in the front or back and do the same with the articles. Then those who like the ads still have access to them, and those who are bothered by ads can easily avoid them.

SSRCCPREZ

Hoss,
Than you make the great argument that ad rates are too low!! AMA should raise ad rates and make them comensorate with a going ad rate for a similar publication. Although the MA staff is accounted for under AMA staff, they are still a cost. If there were no MA than these Staffers would either be performing a differen function or be releived of duty.... If MA is losing money, than it needs to be brought to a break even status at a minimum. As I also stated it is a REQUIREMENT under their non-profit tax status. This is the same for our local club. we are REQUIRED to produce a newsletter on a regular basis in order to fulfill a requirement for our 501 status. We do not sell ads in our newsletter, although we ought to, therefore we suffer the production cost and mailing cost in orde rto be non-profit. I do not know this but would be interested to find out....AMA charter club ad rates for listings of event swent up this year did the same increase apply to for prfit manufacturers and retail establisjments.
Bottom line is that ad revenue should be under the income column not the liability column. This is pretty rudementary. I think we can both agree on this. Also, the beuty of advertising in MA is guaranteed circulation!!! 160,000 copies per month in the hands of the right audience, I'd advertise in that mag.

Bob101

Personally - if MA came with zero ads I'm not sure I would ever open it up. Now magazines that I go out of my way to purchase and actually ready, then yes I'd pay extra for no ads and I would guess then it would be more like a journal.

scottrc

I'd pay $6 for them to add captions under the pictures. That is about the only annoying thing left in the magazine.

Hossfly

AS a MINIMUM -- YES! I belong to other Non Profits. For example a Charter Founder and Sustaining Member of "The American Air Museum In Britian". It sends a quarterly newsletter, which consists mostly of a request for an additional donation. The "newsletter" requirement is a VERY flexible requirement and used by all those Non-Profits around DC to employ friendly publishers which may well not otherwise be employed.

AMA's magazine MA under the IRC is labeled an "Unrelated Business". That means that the profits from the advertising are subject to federal income taxes. Of course there will always be methods to subject the income versus expenses to minimize the amounts subject to tax, however AMA's current methods are pure folly. The "Unrelated Business" should actually be a wholly owned separate business entity with its management REQUIRED to sink or swim and not be totally cared for under AMA's membership welfare blanket. This does NOT mean that certain contracts should not exist extending certain guarantees to MA from AMA's 501 (c) (3) status to MA's management for various services.

Out in my barn are several RCMs from back in the '70s when RCM offered to run 10 pages for AMA free of charge each month. NOPE, AMA chose to pay American Modeler some $100,000.oo per year +/- to do it because Sweeny and Worth were good buddies. Funny how things like that happen. Then when that mag kind of went to _ell, well AMA started its own, and here we are. All this stuff ain't really new and there have always been some interests served OTHER THAN THE MODEL AIRPLANE PERSON with this AMA magazine thing. [:-]

Stickbuilder

Me, I'd pay 6 bucks more if there were more ads like the one from Atlanta Hobbies, or AeroWorks. I get tired of looking at pictures of old farts. I can see that when I look in the mirror. The cute lil" honeys are another thing altogether.....

Bill, AMA 4720
WACO Brotherhood #1

50+AirYears

As I recall reading at the time, Don Dewey's offer to provide the free pages to the AMA were contingent on the AMA in effect dropping support and mention of both control line and free flight, in fact ANYTHING not connected with RC models, which would then make the AMA an RC only group, and no longer a Model Aviation group. This was obviously contrary to the AMA charter to promote MODEL AVIATION.

Hossfly

No such remarks in any of the articles that I have. Don Dewey was adequately self-serving, but he was not a total Dumb Shot. He understood circulation.

50+AirYears

Actually, Horace, back in the 1960's, both some of the writings in RCM and also some of the conversations I had with other Airmen who actually knew Don led me to understand that his opinion was that both CL and FF were on their way out and that the AMA was wasting it's even then limited resources supporting these activities. If I'm wrong, wouldn't be the first or the last time.