MRH ad trends

First, let's look at exhibit A -- MRH ad trends over the last two years.

Let's compare the number of sponsors two years ago (July 2016) to this last July ...

In July of 2016, we had 55 sponsors ...

And looking at July 2018, we're now down to 36 sponsors ...

That's a drop of 35% and the trend continues downward in general. When I look at who is no longer with us, many of them have moved to a prominent Facebook and/or YouTube presence. They got their name known by advertising with us, then moved to a much less expensive approach using Facebook and YouTube.

The trend is simple economics. Once your name is known and you start to build a following, you can get as good or better traction by using the internet itself directly to promote your wares -- you don't need a middleman like MRH that costs you hundreds of dollars every month when Facebook / YouTube are very cheap to free.

Ironically, similar to how we did an end-run on the paper magazines by being cheap and highly present on the web, Google, Facebook, and YouTube are now doing that end-run to us. The same internet we leveraged is now being leveraged against us!

So what does this all mean?

What this means is the ad-supported business model no longer supports a 300 page free magazine.

When we first discussed this trend in my June issue editorial, we inaugurated donations to help stem the revenue drop. The donations have helped some, but as I suspected, they're not a long-term solution to getting the magazine back into the black.

So here's what we're going to do.

First, we're going to resize the ad-supported MRH down to a page count that's more in line with the ad revenue. In other words, we're going to slash the 300 page magazine down to 150 pages and it will remain free. As the ad revenue shrinks or grows, this free magazine will shrink or grow to keep pace with the ad revenue.

Second, we're going to keep the current 300-page full magazine available, but it will no longer be free. If you want to keep getting the 300 pages or so every month, then that will be $1.99 per month or $19.99 per year.

This change becomes effective with the November 2018 issue of MRH.

What will be in each version

The free ad-supported magazine will have this content:
- Publisher editorial
- Electrical Impulses column
- What's Neat column
- Cover story
- Yes, it's a model photo feature
- News
- Derailments

The premium version of the magazine will have all of the above plus ...
- MRH Questions, Answers, and Tips
- Getting Real column / Imagineering column / Lite & Narrow column (rotates from month to month)
- New Jim Six column - The Limited Modeler (How to do more with less)
- Four more feature articles
- Reverse Running

Well, shucks...

You will definitely get my $20 for an annual subscription. I was actually going to try and donate $5 a month if I could remember. The magazine by itself is worth more than the proposed $20. My blog here has about 157,000 reads which I will always find amazing. That blog has been a great source of criticism / help in my modeling. I have made some long distance friends with it. 

MRH is a major hobby resource for me and I will support it. I hope others do too.

A shame to hear....

....definitely understand the reasoning behind that and it is a shame to hear thats the way things are going I'll miss the rest of the magazine and hopefully in a couple years I'll have the budget and money to get the full version thanks for all you've done in the past though and good luck.

Any chance of signing up now or there being a subscription

rate that includes multi-year access?

Will miss the other half

The part of the magazine that's most important to me will no longer be available--the feature articles.  I'll miss it.  I'll enjoy MRH while it's still available.

Gift a premium sub to a young modeler

We'll also make gift subscriptions available, so if anyone wanted to gift you a premium sub, they could (wink wink).

Don't overlook the generosity of the model railroading community, especially when it comes to a passionate up-and-coming young modeler such as yourself ... we're talking 20 bucks, which is just a bit more than the price of one loaded family-sized pizza these days.

Curious...

Based on the explanation of what's going on, is it fair to infer the print magazines have not seen the same advertiser declines over the last two years?  That is to ask, is the end-run to Facebook and YouTube confined to the internet - or are Facebook and YouTube grabbing significant advertising dollars from everywhere?

Yes

Certainly, the entire ad business is changing - print, TV, radio -- and now previous internet ad-based venues.

Google, Facebook, and YouTube are now affecting every media venue, including previously internet-based ad-supported publishing. These three are becoming the new advertising trifecta that's capturing the lion's share of advertising.

And their new intelligent ads based on your browsing trends make sure the ads go to folks who have already shown they're interested in those products. The ad clicks with these new intelligent ads are setting new ad effectiveness records compared to non-selective broadcast-to-everyone ads.

Folks browsing the internet are also appreciating the fact they're no longer getting bombarded with so many irrelevant ads. But the one fly in the ointment is keeping a tight rein on what these three biggies can track about you so they can target their ads.

Important?

Can something be important yet not worth $2 a month at the same time?  

Randy

It's still available -- it's just not free

It's still available, it just won't be free. Ads are no longer paying for it, so somebody needs to pay for it if you still want to get it.

We're talking two bucks a month for another 150 pages -- compared to what, $7 per month for an 80 page paper magazine these days?

All depends on your priorities. One less $2 McCaffe drink per month will pay for it. Just depends on what matters most to you ...

I am in for $20. a year on

I am in for $20. a year on top of the annual Trainmaster's fee.

Barry

@MikeM

The problem is what happens on the accounting side -- longer terms create a much larger liability on the business balance sheet. So doing a one year term that auto renews if you wish is a good balance between monthly and multi-year terms.

And yes, we will be making early signups available as of October.

Premium MRH + TMTV

As of January 2019, we expect to start offering some package deals with very special pricing -- an all-you-can-eat deal that gives you both the premium mag and a year of TMTV for a really good price.

Watch for it.

Thanks

Thanks, I definitely agree the price is very fair for what you give. my parents still just think my train hobby is a waste of money sadly even after presenting at 2 conventions and them attending one wasn't enough to sway their opinions

Congratulations

Joe

Congratulations on making the jump to subscriptions, as you know and many may not know I have pushing for that for sometime while I was Assistant Editor.  

It's still available -- it's just not free

I don't think a page count is a good comparison between a print publication and an on-line publication; the size of the "page" is different between the two mediums.  Word count would be a better comparison.

I will be a subscriber. I did

I will be a subscriber. I did not believe the forever free model would last. Do you think it might be worthwhile to do actual product reviews in the future since the advertising is no longer paying for things.

Will paying the subscription

Will paying the subscription make the entire premium edition available for download (I have every MRH from issue one on my hard drive), or will this be one of those "on-line only" products that is only accessible when logged in online?

I am in.    $20.00 a year is

I am in. 

$20.00 a year is well worth it. I pay for trainmasters TV...and that is fantastic. THe magazine is fantastic, I am hopefull paid subscriptions will improve it. 

What about access to the archives? 

Yes, you will still be able to download to own

Pay for what was once free...

Though I do get where you're coming from and the change seems to be rational and needed, I assume there's been some looking into which audience segment you'll lose from this?

I know of a photography site that was free and one day it went to a pay site. They lost the bulk of their audience and in the end, they couldn't maintain anything because there wasn't nearly enough people left once it went from a free site (which for them started a downward spiral, because nobody would hang around the site to see what free stuff still existed because nobody was there anymore who was paying for the content for others to look at). Last I heard, the name of the domain is for sale, with no takers.

Hobbyists are traditionally a very cheap lot. They think nothing of spending a month's rent on something 'cool' but will scrimp and save on everything else. There's also a massive entitlement mindset online, where folks feel they shouldn't have pay for any online content. The very thing that spelled trouble for the print magazines (being able to find content on line for free online as opposed to paying for it) could surely apply here as well. I've heard this is one of the reasons the 'online extras' that almost all the print mags offer aren't doing very well.

Anyway, I of course wish you and MRH well as I'm a big fan. I just hope things can keep on rolling in this manner as I know several people who don't contribute to the forums but do read this online. They won't be coming back once they find they have to pay for it (as they're classic examples of the 'I do not pay for online hobby content' mindset).

Comparison of value

Yes, MRH and paper magazine pages are not totally equivalent -- so lets look at ad ratio to total pages, total text content by 5 character "words" (spaces count as a letter) and number of content photos.

Here's the results:

MR - August issue
84 pages
Ad ratio: 45%
Total content text: ~21,000 words
Total content photos: 88
Price per 1000 words: 15 cents (assuming newsstand price)
Price per dozen photos: 47 cents (assuming newsstand price)

MRH - August issue
290 pages
Ad ratio: 11%
Total content text: ~33,000 words
Total content photos: 323
Price per 1000 words: 3 cents (assuming new premium issue pricing)
Price per dozen photos: 4 cents (assuming new premium issue pricing)

MRH premium issue content value is 5-10x that of Model Railroader per these stats. If you subscribe to the paper MR (~50% savings), the value becomes 2.5-5x for MRH content over MR content as to cost with the price of a premium MRH subscription.

That's assuming all content is equal -- MR tends to do more beginner content than MRH does.