ORIGINAL: STLPilot
Hey Kid check out post #24 and see where I got $6.66 a copy. Dave Mathewson is a bright guy as demonstrated in this thread. He also handles himself very professionally.
Thank You, STL, for bring up this VERY OLD THREAD. I wish to analyze post #36, DM's reply to my 2004 question.
ORIGINAL: Hossfly
Dave, as I wrote in the thread "More Model Aviation" the concept and operation of MA as it is, is a prime example of a very poorly managed business. Like any business subsidized by the government, MA subsidized by the AMA membership only leads the managers to accomplish little outside pomp and glitter.
Model Aviation as a non-related business must stand on its own. This can only be done by making the advertising rates competitive with the market. After all, MA has a captive audience of some 160,000 readers.
Fancy colors and glitter in the magazine simply do not justify an expense over and above its income.
I fully understand the needs of the magazine to address all model disciplines. Regardless of other inputs in this thread ARFs are a way of the world in modeling. ARFs, electrics, and turbines are the wave of the future. CL Stunt is not a relatively super popular activity, regardless if it's my favorite thing and obviously the MA Editor's.
MA should go with the trends and contemporary activities while paying token attention to the past and the forecast future.
Most of all MA should pay its way in the world through advertising rates, which don't simply go to pay the agent's commissions and the cost of obtaining the advertising. If the AMA EC produced as much RHETORIC about the losses and costs of MA as they produce about insurance, then those advertising rates would double overnight.
Hi Horrace,
The concept that MA has to work under is that it has to be everything to everybody. It really needs to touch on every discipline and do justice to each. An impossible task at best. At the same time, I agree, it needs to be entertaining and relevant to the interests of the majority of today's members.
I think it was earlier in this thread that I wrote that MA should be operated as a viable business entity. The amount of member dues that goes to subsidize the magazine really equates to the "subscription cost". I don't know that MA could sustain itself without "selling" any subscriptions. I think I would be comfortable with whatever the number was as long as I knew that the magazine operation was being run as well as it could be.
Dave
Look at Dave's first two sentences in his reply. Total BS, because I had already stated the basic same thesis in par.4 -- highlighted. There was no need to tell ME what I had already said to him. Simply a typical bureaucrat's answer: just restate the problem. [:'(]
Now look at his 2nd paragraph. What a crock? First, "MA should be operated as a viable business entity." Then he goes into "subscription cost". The AMA member receives the mag. as a part of the membership. "SUBSCRIPTIONS" as detailed in the accounting system only apply to Hobby Shop orders and non-AMA subscribers.
Now, "I don't know that MA could sustain itself without "selling" any subscriptions." [:-] H_ll, he doesn't even know what subscriptions means in the accounting for AMA income. Besides
MA DOES NOT sustain itself. The member-dues sustain MA.
Now the crowning blow: "I think I would be comfortable with whatever the number was as long as I knew that the magazine operation was being run as well as it could be."
Just what the devil does ".... as well as it could be." translate to? In my simple mind, it translates to, "Anything "Team Kurek" ( stealing KE's terms) wants to do is fine with me as long as I am not bothered with any details."
That reply back in 2004 well planted in my mind that DM had not bothered to become in-depth informed within the AMA actual operation. OR if he had, he liked the bureaucracy as it was/is and I don't expect to see any significant changes in the current bureaucracy within the next three years. Maybe a few band-aids here and there, but nothing significant is going to happen when it comes to AMA standing out as a desirable organization to be a member of.
Thanks again STL for bringing this item to the forefront.