The answer is that, for all their digital experimentation, magazines are nowhere near ready to abandon print. Online ads still bring in a fraction of the revenue print ads do, apps are still in the early stages of monetization, and digital-download versions are still a relatively small proportion of revenue. Magazine readers aren’t yet ready to lose their print copies, either. A 2010 study by the CMO Council found that 87 percent of people interested in reading magazines on tablets or e-readers still wanted a printed copy to accompany it; another survey conducted by the Harrison Group on behalf of Zinio and MEMS Technology showed that 75 percent of readers felt that digital content complements print content, and only 25 percent felt that digital could replace print.
True, those attitudes will likely shift with time. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), which has allowed for digital editions in its audits since 2002, the number of magazines that request audits of their digital editions increased fourfold from 2007 to 2011, and about a third of the magazines the bureau audits now do so. But as of 2011, digital subscriptions still account for less than 1 percent of total circulation for all US magazines, according to the ABC.
In the absence of any clear short-term solutions, what’s a publisher to do? Stick with the USPS but move up the editorial schedule to accommodate slower service, making the content less current? Switch to an alternate delivery service, which would be more expensive? Or push readers to go digital even faster? No option is perfect, but they’re all on the table.
“The whole industry is talking about everything,” said William Falk of The Week. “There is a sea change going on, and none of us know quite how it’s going to shake out.”
This could be fixed, according to Charley:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/the-post-office-lives-8757430
"As has become clear over the past five years, conservative politicians have decided that we don't need a post office any more. Under cover of technology, and using the rise of e-mail as an alibi, the Congress quite deliberately has engaged in a campaign to make the United States Postal System an unsustainable concern. They've done it quite well, actually. In 2006, when nobody was paying attention, a lame duck session of Congress, in which there was still a Republican majority, passed a neat little poison-pill called the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which required the USPS to pre-fund 75 years worth of health-care benefits over the next 10 years. (No other government entity ever has been required to do anything like this.) Among other things, this prevented the USPS from raising rates, or doing anything else that would lift the weight of the fiscal millstone that had been hung upon it. That this was a deliberate act of sabotage was revealed by the fact that a report indicated that, absent this pre-payment requirement, the USPS would be running a profit of $2.5 billion. With the requirement, the service is $24 billion in the hole."
So it could be fixed by relieving the prefund requirement, bumping up rates, small adjustments. Buuuut
"So why are conservative politicians breaking so much rock trying to rid us of the curse of government mail delivery? Go back to that quote from Park and Markovitz:
The post office was 'the one concrete link between every community of individuals and the Federal government' that functioned 'importantly in the human structure of the community.... [The post office] brought to the locality a symbol of government efficiency, permanence, service, and even culture.
The entire modern conservative movement consists of an ongoing attempt to sever the relationship of a self-governing people to their government, to break down the concept of a political commonwealth."
You know what the private and public sector were doing with their pensions? No, not prefunding them. Killing them:
http://www.cfr.org/foreign-policy-history/roaring-nineties-new-history-worlds-most-prosperous-decade/p6492
"what they did during the '90s is they were allowed to use projections assuming a nine percent return on their investments and stock. What that meant was that to provide the benefits that they promised to their workers in 20 years, 25 years, or 30 years, you didn't have to put away very much money. And that meant that they didn't have to put away very much money. They could treat the rest as profits. And so that gave an uplifted view of profits.[which meant an "uplifted view" for executive compensation and tax cuts- see Ellen Schultz]
Now, two things happen. First they didn't get the nine percent return over the period of 2000 to 2002, 2003, it wasn't, they didn't actually increase at the 27 percent that they had expected."
So while all other enterprises are gutting their future liabilities, by making them unpayable because they aren't bothering to fund them (and then claiming financial crises are to blame for not paying high risk returns on meagre investments), conservatives have mandated the postal service pay 65 years worth of liabilities in this 10 year period.
This is episode #1702934 of "Government is not the problem, conservatives are,"
#1 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 14 May 2012 at 12:16 PM
Thimbles,
It might be best if you got your facts correct before spouting off: In the 2006 elections, Democrats won both the House of Representatives (233 Democrats, 202 Republicans) and the Senate (49 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and 2 Independents caucusing with the Democrats) as well as the majority of state governorships (28-22). The above article was interesting and I quickly scrolled down to see what comments might have additional suggestions for we publishers who still depend on a thriving and working post office. But alas, only a lot of jibber jab posted by someone on the Obama staff. This is not the place for your unrelated blogs. And again, please get your facts straight if you are going to blab.
#2 Posted by patricia, CJR on Tue 15 May 2012 at 08:28 AM
Hey idiot, before accusing me of getting my facts wrong, being on the Obama staff, and blabbing you should get a tiny bit familiar with the facts discussed:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr6407
(Yeah, that's the 109th congress, the famed WORST CONGRESS EVER - at least until recent idiot conservatives decided they have no higher duty than to stop the elected 'Kenyan' by busting every part of the country they can touch)
get a bit familiar with my posts: (I must be the worst Obama staffer ever since I spend half my time slagging 'the boss')
and you should perhaps look in the mirror and check your empty head for a spout.
Thanks for your contribution, now blow away lightweight.
#3 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 15 May 2012 at 11:25 AM
In other news
"Government is not the problem, conservatives are," not that we'd ever know it from the 'liberal media'.
"Last month, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein published an Op ed and a book making the extremely controversial argument that both parties aren’t equally to blame for what ails Washington...
It turns out neither man has been invited on to the Sunday shows even once to discuss this thesis. As Bob Somerby and Kevin Drum note, these are among the most quoted people in Washington — yet suddenly this latest topic is too hot for the talkers, or not deemed relevant at all...
“The piece focused on press culpability — it would be hard to find a more sensitive issue for the media than the question of whether they’re doing their job,” Ornstein said. “We got tons of emails from some of the biggest reporters in the business, saying, `We’ve raised this in the newsroom, and editors just brush it aside.’”..
This is curious. Is “experts confirm that, yes, one side is more to blame than the other, and journalists should say so” really too hot a topic for the Sunday shows? Is it not relevant or interesting?
Howie? Dave? Bob? George? Candy? No interest in this?
Anyone?
Hello?"
#4 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 15 May 2012 at 12:26 PM
Working for a newspaper, we'd love it if Magazines would just UPS their copies to our printing plants, and we could deliver them to the driveways for less than the post office charges. There are newspapers covering much of the country with home delivery. This should be the solution. I don't know why more magazines aren't doing this. It would help subsideze the newspaper delivery networks, and thereby help keep newspapers in business too.
#5 Posted by Annonymous, CJR on Tue 15 May 2012 at 04:07 PM
Do not put too much fault for late magazines on the USPS. I have found through at least 2 of my 9+ magazines, that the late ones are late because of the US agents' sending the magazines late in the week instead of the date assigned or that they double up. My London magazines come in 2's usually on the date given for the second one. The other seems to think since he's in NYC and I am in California, he can skip one every so often. I notify the publisher in London and Wallah!!! it shows up 3-4 days after the notice and the next 2-3 come right on time. Magazine publishers must also oversee the actions of their agents since those here in the States are just as likely to use agents as those overseas. Those agents can be just as careless and/or lazy as those whose publishers are across the ocean. Also, those of you that do get mail regularly, get to know your carrier and when it's the holiday time--esp Xmas, send
him/her a token of your appreciation for being on time. Don't require perfection since many times your late items may be late because the one who filled in, carried only 1st class mail and left the heavy things--magazines-- to your regular one later.
#6 Posted by trish, CJR on Thu 24 May 2012 at 02:49 PM