ORIGINAL: Red Scholefield
ORIGINAL: J_R
Hi Red
MA costs AMA members just under $6.50 of thier dues, per year, including postage. How much do you think the AMA could discount the dues if just the AMA News section were mailed to those not wishing to to recieve MA?
JR
Sending each member his copy of Model Aviation costs the AMA a heck of lot more than $6.50/year. The question that has to be asked is how much would it save the AMA and how much of this saving could be passed on to members that don't want the magazine.
Your $6.50 number is probably what it cost each member to subsidize the magazine for a year, taking into consideration printing and mailing costs. Now throw in AMA headquarters salaries and benefits, income from advertising, etc. and what kind of a picture do we really have? It wouldn't take a financial genius to figure this out. It would take a investigative genius to get the actual figures necessary to make a decision however.
IMO, Red you are more correct than the other figure of $6.50. That $6.50 is strictly from comparing Direct Costs of MA to the advertising income which in itself
nets out to a measly $80,000 +/- change.
All staff comes under the 6 million ++ "Operating Expense" of the AMA parent organization itself.
Since
Model Aviation is a separate corporation owned by AMA yet is considered a non-related business entity, I have to admit that I am rather amazed at the way the distribution works out. It's too bad that the AMA management is so short-sighted in the long-term reality of how their financial actions destroy an opportunity to further promote model aviation.
IMO, AMA management appears totally focused on a commercial magazine, not to promote model aviation, but to protect a good-ol'-boy empire. If the advertising rates were adjusted to make MA a stand-alone item, and was competitively priced for both LHS and newstand distribution, not only would AMA be reaching "outside the choir", but would be extending their hand to all the other media to join AMA in again focusing on model aviation as a sport/hobby/recreational activity. Remember how in those good-ol'-days all the magazines presented articles about the NATs and other big events sanctioned by AMA. Thanks to the non-competitive
Model Aviation that common interest of promoting the sport no longer exists.
What is really strange is that the membership believes that the $$ cost of Insurance, $1,230,000, is the real big thing in AMA dues. B-S! The member-dues subsidy of MA costs almost $970,000. No Officer ever brings that to light. That is direct costs only, not to mention the staff including work-at-home types that are subsidized under AMA expense.[:@]
AMA management is satisfied to ram the mag down the member's throats, shy away from distribution outside the conscripted audience, and take care of the chosen few.
The Staff is there. They are paid by the AMA and not accounted to the magazine. I don't see a lot of $$$ saved from allowing non subscriptions by members. Only pennies at best. Actually, the cost of separating the mailing lists may engulf any $$ savings. OTOH the goodwill may well be worth the try.
If we had access to the very penny-to-penny cost of the magazine known only to the chosen few, then perhaps that figure on page 6 of each magazine may be more to the actual $$ figured in those mysterious "Budgets" that the EVP/CFO never reveals to the membership.
"When membership in the Academy of Model Aeronautics includes subscription to Model Aviation, $18 of the dues are for the subscription."
Even the good Mr. Mathewson gave a horse-shot answer to that question here on the forum.
So I don't expect a big change from the new Council.[&o]