Magazine ad rates
 

I'm not sure what ama charges for ad rates, but here is my list I found from October 1, 2002 when I was doing some writing for a midwestern M/C mag called WIDE OPEN m/c magazine. The rates are probably a lot higher now. This mag has about a 50,000 quarterly distribution. The bigger the distribution is, the more the ads in the mag cost.
These prices do not include any individual classified type ad prices

full inside front cover, or pages 2&3color$4,000.00
full back covercolor$5,000.00
inside back cover color$4,000.00
full page b&w$3,000.00color$3,500.00
1/2 page color, horiz or vert$1,750.00
1/4 " " " " " $1,100.00
1/6 page color$850.00
1/8 " " $650.00
1/16 " " $400.00

2% cash discount when pd within 10 days.

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

the point?

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

Since you haven't been keeping track of things here in the last year or two..........A lot of them here say the ama mag is letting the advertisers off to cheap on ad rates. Sooooo, I was just giving the guys something to compare with.

Next time, investigate a little before you jump me...

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

Good work Toolman.
Now it would be great to see the MA rates for direct comparison,
and the PPP parkie mag rates as well.


<edit>
uh, make that SemiDirect comparison due to the numbers being old

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

If you want to see a direct comparo of MA to MAN, go to RC Groups, "Here we go again" thread, pgs. 4-5. BJPaul did this already.

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

Model Aviations ad rates run very close to the rest of the model aviation magazines. The rates you quote would be VERY high for this industry. Anyone, for the most part, can request ad rate cards from magazines.

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

No matter what they say, I just put it up to show you what we got here in the midwest for a small M/C mag. The mag has grew alot since 2002 an I imagine the rates have went up quite abit also.

If the model plane mags wanna sell ads cheap, I guess that is their perogative. But we never had any trouble getting those prices then.

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

Within reason, if Joe Lipodude wants to be top banana, he will find a way to advertize in the most circulated magazines.

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

804-
That info may be great for folks that wander around RCGroups,
but I do my surfing at RCUniverse rather than that other place.

I dont suppose you would copypaste the details here?

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

never let it be said that i didn't help ya out, KE <G>


It must be a glitch

bjpaul's Avatar

Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Sanford Centrl Reg, Florida, United States
Posts: 2,667

Ok.... getting beyond the "personal issues"..... why does MA charge below market add rates? The AMA is always looking for revenue........ the infamous free CD ROM program etc......

A quick web search shows the following rates for Model Aviation Magazine:

FOUR-COLOR 1x 3x 6x
Full page $2,709 $2,575 $2,451
2/3 page 1,978 1,916 1,875
1/2 page 1,530 1,514 1,457
1/3 page 1,045 1,030 989
Cover 2 NA NA 3,502
Cover 3 NA NA 3,378
Cover 4 NA NA 3,821

TWO-COLOR* 1x 3x 6x
Full page $2,395 $2,256 $2,137
2/3 page 1,797 1,736 1,694
1/2 page 1,488 1,468 1,416
1/3 page 1,143 1,128 1,087

BLACK & WHITE 1x 3x 6x
Full page $2,024 $1,885 $1,766
2/3 page 1,427 1,365 1,324
1/2 page 1,118 1,097 1,045
1/3 page 773 757 716
1/4 page 587 551 536
1/6 page 407 397 376
1/12 page 263 252 242

From the AMA website you can get the MA rates.......

Ad Size 12x 6x 1x
Full page $1194 $1318 $1579
2⁄3 page $909 $989 $1182
1⁄2 page $695 $757 $904
1⁄3 page $495 $535 $637
1⁄4 page $364 $394 $467
1⁄6 page $273 $296 $354
1⁄8 page $217 $234 $280
1⁄12 page $166 $177 $212
1 inch $92 $98 $115

With a higher circulation MA is charging significantly less.........

And YES any profits from MA could go into the General Fund to the benefit of all members.........

So setting aside Hoss vs Huber ........ what is the justification for charging below market rates?

copied from that other site, all credit for research goes to BJPaul

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

Close yes, cheaper no and I have been involved in advertising in every RC mag. MA is the most expensive rag I've ever advertised in or had my customers advertise. There is not 1 RC rag that won't move their prices by up 50% or more from their rack rate. MA does not budge. So go ahead and plaster rates cards from other mags on the thread ... but in reality you can cut those advertised prices in half.

Also if you want to compare apples to apples, the EAA magazine ad rates about about 4 times as much as MA and they have the EXACT same membership as the AMA. Why ... the EAA's industry has hundreds of real players, whereas AMA is filled with about 2-3 players and 10,000 mom and pop shops. The only way for MA to stay in business is to be able to accommodate these mom and pops, otherwise you aer stuck with 2-3 advertisers with real money.

Hoss has been going on for years how he is going to "reform" ad prices. Problem is nobody has a say in it except for the people who pay to advertise and this is no different than any other industry. No matter where you put ad prices it will only be relative to those that can afford it. Supply and demand has been the driving force of advertising since cavemen were writing on walls, Hoss is not going to change anything.

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

Thanx for doing the legwork on that Mongo


wait a sec, are both those price tables in Mongo's post for MA?


STL
<sigh> Just like Bob,
you say there are only 3 advertizers that are not mom&pop.
Name these 3 real players, so we can all know all the other companies you consider Mom&Pop.

For example, given Hanger9, Greatplanes, Tower, HobbyLobby
which one is the Mom&Pop opperation, since there are only 3 in all of MA.

Perhaps you could go thru MA ad by ad
and actually count out the 1/3page or greater Mom&Pops vs real companies.
Or would that be an undue burden on you,
since you dont even get MA to know what is in it this month/year.



If you guys would make reasonable statements, I wouldnt have to do this all the time.

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

Reasonable statements? Well KE if you would like to enter the RC business and spend your own dollars in advertising, we wouldn't have to constantly explain to you how it all works. You know who the real players are, but my statements are facts based on experience. Anyone is welcome to disprove this theory of ad rates ... be my guest.

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

Aquacraft, Carl Goldberg Products, Coverite, DuraPlane, DuraTrax, Dynaflite, Electrifly, Flight Power, FlyZone, Fuji Engines, Futaba, Globee, Great Planes Model Manufacturing, Heli-Max, Hobbico, iWaver, Kontronik, O.S. Engines, O'Donnel Racing, Real Flight, Revell, SuperTigre, Team Checkpoint and Top Flite belong to one company Hobbico/Tower. Horizon has an equal list. Throw out all the ads with these and all that is left is nothing. The mom and pop places who make needle valves for control line and one making rubber band planes cant even play. The biggest problem is how do you play both; MA is a news letter for the all modeling community.

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

So, some feel that MA is already charging all it possibly can for ad space. Is this notion based on any past efforts to raise the rates?
Or is this just a hunch?

If I didn't know better, I would get the feeling that some here think the magazine is doing everything it can to break even and that any efforts to correct the short falls will be a waste of time?

A frequent poster in the other forum even thinks that the only problem is the way the money gets counted :eek:.

The rates could be adjusted in such a way that small ad prices aren't affected as much as the large ones [with a rate increase].

Ad space in the private sector magazines is not worth nearly as much as space in MA. The sooner that this fact is universally accepted, the sooner they can move on to deciding how much more space in MA is actually worth.

By raising the bar for ad space, I think you will also see less space dedicated to advertising, which also lowers overhead.

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

There is no hunch, ad rates are supply and demand based only. If MA moves rates up, that doesn't change anything, you'll just lose the amount of space in the magazine to companies that can't afford it or just change the relative size of their ad. MA have 0 control over marketing budgets. The budgets are set by the individual companies. Every month MA knows where to stick their prices based on previous month's sales ... that's it ... that's the equation. Same with newspapers, billboards, aero-ads and every other ad based mechanism on the planet. Private sector has nothing to do with it ... advertisers do not see AMA as a private, for stock, publicly held or any other type of company, they see the MA as an outlet to visual impressions only.

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

CP
What are you saying?
That ad space in a 135k+ copy model magazine is worth more than similar size ad in a 50k copy model mag?

Egad, brilliant discovery old chap. Good show, pip pip.[8D]
I say discovery, because it seems folks around here didnt know that.

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

Have you seen anything that is a truely definitive comparison on rates? I would suspect that the more ad space one buys, the cheaper it becomes by the page or fractional page one is buying, which is going to make it difficult to know what the average price per page/fractional page actually is. My guess is that the published numbers represent a starting point for negotiations with the big players. I've seen numbers posted but don't know how reliable they may be or more importantly if they really reflect reality when there are or may be quantity discounts in play. Serious question here, not trying to play "gotcha".

I see no reason why MA's rates shouldn't be competitive with other mass circulation RC magazines (and circulation/volume based) unless lead times differences or other value based factors may be in play somehow.

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

KE, do you think a day will come when mailing out 150,000 pounds of paper each and every month becomes cost prohibitive? I don't know how well received an online version [of MA] would be by advertisers, but RCU doesn't seem to be doing so badly?

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

Oh, man. Am I going to have to drag this desktop PC and 24" monitor into the loo with me?

If anyone should care to look, "the Candidate" has posted his game plan in his forum.

Question. Is the premise that MA is undercharging for it's ad space?

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

You also don't see RCU creating a print based periodical as well and there is a reason for that too, the same one why MA is standoffish about going online. DM already explained why the AMA cannot go online at this time and it's due to the failure rate to those that have already attempted it in the past. Online advertising would be a whole new ball game and HIGHLY competitive one at that.

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

Bob, I don't think there is any universally accepted formula. Newspaper or phonebook ads might just have linear rates? In hobby magazines, I see no reason to discount large blocks of advertising on a page, in fact I think that large blocks of space [because of their sales impact] should pay a premium. Look at some of the full page ads out there already, they are really 50 individual ads crammed into one page by an importer. Ads like this will not read well or sell as well presented any other way than on a one or two page spread. I think this is a case where MA is operating from a position of strength and has the upper hand.

I do not think Hoss would have decided to make improving MA's bottom line an issue without some basis in fact. He points out that our fully subsidized magazine has inadvertently managed to contribute to the failure of some pretty nice magazines, by not raising the bar high enough for ad rates. If our magazine had no safety net and was forced to operate like any other magazine in the free world, it is possible that MA could co-exist with a handful of other worthwhile magazines instead of just the 1 or 2 that I see any more at the news stand.

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

0..

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

From Mark Smith's candidate forum:



Bob,
Your assumptions are relatively close. I'm not sure that there is a magazine on the market that would be profitable without some revenue generated from subscriptions. The AMA members who receive Model Aviation are, essentially, the magazine's subscription base. A certain amount of each member's dues is allocated to the magazine as a benefit of membership.

So, yes I agree that an amount from each member's dues goes to "subsidize" the cost of the magazine. But, no more so than an amount of each member's dues goes to "subsidize" the cost of the liability insurance protection each member also receives as another benefit of membership.

Just as I mentioned above that I don't think any magazine could break even without at least some revenue generated from subscriptions, I don't believe Model Aviation can either. What we can do is manage the publication as efficiently as possible so as to keep the amount of member dues earmarked for Model Aviation as minimal as possible. This includes making sure that our advertising rates are inline with industry standards as well as responsibly managing all of the expenses associated with publication. In the past our advertising rates were a bit low relative to some other publications. In January of this year we raised our rates to bring them more inline with the other model aviation publications. These rates will be regularly reviewed and adjusted as needed.

Mark

RE: Magazine ad rates
 

If ya ask me, it looks like ama would like to be the only ins co. and the only mag, once they run the others out of biz. I'd venture to say that ama would like to have total control of the model airplane biz. (not counting manuf. an sales)