Quote:
Originally Posted by bgd73
hot rod is very much alive. As slow as that world is to evolve, with many still believing <5 liters is a small displacement.. you get cars customed with americas own stuff showing it like it was...right in its own magazine.
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I work in the magazine industry now, and formerly for the company that produces Hot Rod, and I can tell you that, as a magazine, it's on the same slow death spiral as all print magazines.
The hot rod-type magazines tend to fare a little better because they appeal to an older demo that wants paper magazines. However, advertisers are becoming more frugal, trading the uncertainty of magazine advertising with countable guaranteed impressions on the web. That drives down ad revenue, which magazines MUST have to make a profit and still offer $18/year subscriptions.
An ecomodder-type magazine might survive in the short term. But it needs to either have ad revenue (not a lot of market for that. The big boys advertise through agencies that won't touch anything under probably 100,000 subscribers), or they need to charge enough for the subs to cover all costs, in which case you've got Make Magazine at 60 bucks for four issues.
And besides, the web is where all of the magazine companies are putting their drool. No printing costs, free.. er, user-contributed content, and minimal staffing.
Edit: This spiel doesn't reflect the opinion of my current or former employers.