While the AMA President, ED, and the rest of the EC are silent on AMA's grim financial position, the CFO is the only one with the moral courage to tell the truth. The July Model Aviation has the following quotes from him:
- "Membership numbers are slightly down" (note 1)
- "During next couple months and especially in the fall, we expect to see a downturn in memberships..."
- "The hobby is a discretionary expense..."
- "We still expect a decrease in revenue from events..."
- "...[W]e have seen a sharp drop in advertising revenue from companies that have been AMA sponsors for many years."
- "Print advertising has been especially hard hit ... I do not feel this revenue will return in the future..."
- "Now the magazine drains precious resources..."
We have AMA nobility in this forum, one of the Knights of the Taj-Muncie Round Table. And that member is silent on HIS ideas to reverse any of the trends. He's silent in the EC meetings on the subject, silent in these forums, and so far as I can tell - doesn't have ANY ideas to reverse the trends above. It appears that none of them do ... which reinforces what I've been saying for decades. They're in over their heads.
They need to take a machete to spending. Not six months from now. NOW. They need to fire the majority of the print staff, as they've been ineffective producing content that brings advertising. They don't need to give the advertising agency "more time" as advocated at a meeting recently, they need to fire them now. They don't need yet another committee to study the matter (meanwhile haemorrhaging money for another three months while they wait for the study) ... they need to act now.
Notes:
1. PAYING memberships have been for nearly every year for the last couple decades