Zach Matthews
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Hey Mike –
Let’s see; my current January kilobytes of data transferred is 1,139,726,025; so that would be 1.1 TB, right? There have been a total of 14,941 downloads of various podcasts in my top ten hits list so far in January – that works out to about 75MB per download, if the only traffic on the site was people downloading podcasts (which isn’t true, obviously, but the average podcast is only about 35MB, not 75MB). So, yeah, I guess that’s right.
Zach
Yes, Dusty. One of the magazines supposedly just released all their editors save one this week (I know they had to let one guy go at least), and that’s happened a couple times in the last year across the board. A number of magazines have simply folded. I got a notice this week that National Geographic Adventure had folded, too, so it’s not just fly fishing by any means.
Zach
That is a very good point, Bob. I had not thought of that. I am counting on the technology of the digital reader to improve, too. Right now when you look at your computer screen, you are seeing between 72 and 90 dots per inch depending on whether you use a Mac or a PC. (This gets complicated fast due to monitor enlargement, but for a measurement of how dense the pixels are on your personal computer, grab a ruler and go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_densities. The square box over there on the right would be rendered at roughly three quarters of an inch in American Angler magazine, meaning all those pixels would get compressed into a much tighter space.)
Magazines typically print in between 220 and 270 dpi, while the best art mags might print in 300dpi or higher. That’s why paper oftentimes looks richer; it literally is.
Over time, I think the eReader technology like the Amazon Kindle and its ilk will improve to the point that we have paper-like full-color displays that don’t look so “computer-y.” Eyestrain is a major factor in why people don’t like to read online all day, and that is related to the pixel count more than anything else. When THAT happens, I truly believe it will be irrelevant whether we read on paper or a digital device. Personally, I will never stop buying paper books, but for throw-away stuff like magazines, I don’t really care how I read them, if the experience is equivalent.
Zach
Abe –
The ads to articles ratio in the last six months to a year is the lowest it has ever, ever, ever been. As a result, most of the magazines have gone through rounds of job cuts–one of the magazines just cut jobs this week.
I think it helps to appreciate the history of fly fishing magazines a bit. Most fly magazines historically started as newsletters for clubs or fly shops. They had a regional base (American Angler’s was in the NE, while I believe Fly Fisherman’s was in Pennsylvania). After the newsletter reached a certain size, typically it was bought by a bigger company. This was generally a good thing: the writers got paid more and thus better writers would be drawn in, color on every page is nice, and the photography quality went way up due to better printing and better paper.
That was the world of fly fishing magazines through the late 1990s. They did have a symbiotic relationship with advertisers; the ads basically paid for the upgrades to full color, paper, better writers and photographers, etc., that a newsletter list could never have supported. In the late 1990s magazine conglomerate companies started buying up lots of magazines in order to better sell ad “bundles” to larger companies like Ford Motor Company or Big Tobacco, etc. That’s why you started seeing so many truck and chew ads in magazines like Field and Stream, and that filtered down.
Meanwhile, yes, for a while fly fishing magazines had something of a pretension to real journalism: they tried to draw an editorial line between content and advertising. Was that ever very realistic? Not really; those magazines are meant to entertain–they are not the New York Times. However, for the most part, the manufacturers did respect the boundaries and would not push on a writer too hard to say nice things about the product.
I’ve written over two dozen national feature articles. Most of those had to do with some kind of equipment, and thus I’ve dealt first-hand with the kind of editorial pressure a manufacturer can put on a magazine. Fact is, it’s not much. At most, I’d get pressured to merely “include everyone,” which can lead to long lists of items that may not read very well, but fundamentally that does not impact *what* I am writing about, which is usually a technical concept like how rods are built. On the contrary, more input usually means a better article. And, you’d be surprised how hard it is to get some companies even *interested* in an article on their technology. Many of them could not care less if they get included (which personally I don’t view as very savvy, but it definitely shows the lack of nefariousness going on in these relationships).
The truth is, since the advertising crash in 2007, the magazines have suffered greatly. Every one of them has lowered page count for *real articles* and lowered the payroll, usually by cutting experienced and talented editors. Several of the major magazines are literally just one man with a computer now, who might have the assistance of an art department shared with 10 other publications. I think that hurts quality, even though the guys in charge usually are still very capable–they are just being asked to do too much.
What the digital magazine distribution model does is add another line of income (online subscriptions), while *greatly reducing costs.* You don’t have a sell-through problem as both Phil Monahan and Tom Bie have described, with 40-70% of magazines printed being returned and discarded (and thus wasted money-wise). Instead, you get a digital copy, which costs the manufacturer nothing to distribute once it’s made on a computer (as it already is). I do think we’ll still have paper magazines available; certainly we will. The difference will be the ability to download, say, American Angler, from anywhere with a cell phone connection (doctor’s offices, lobbies, board room meetings, a campsite, an airport, on a plane, the list goes on and on). You won’t have to track down the paper copy unless you want to. Many photographers have noted how much better our content looks when it’s back lit on a computer screen, too.
Are there tradeoffs? Sure–you listed many of them. But as a supplement, rather than a replacement, I think this has the potential to be a very good thing. I believe the ads will in fact go back up in number, but if the page count of real content also goes back up (which it will), then so what? Personally, I like looking at ads for stuff I don’t know about; when I read a hunting magazine, for instance, I always look at the ads as well as the material.
Anyway, some stuff to ponder.
Zach
Zach –
I am by no means an art critic, but the major distinction I see between this image and the other three you posted is that the proportions are all 100% correct in this one.
