I bought a lifetime subscription to Rolling Stone about 5 years ago. Sounds ridiculous, but for 99 bucks I’m going to get every issue for the rest of my life (hopefully they’ll still be making magazines). If I get them until I am 80, that’ll be 6.8 cents an issue. Sign me up. Anyways, about 3 months ago I got an email from Rolling Stone telling me that they are thinking about switching a few things up and would I mind if they sent me a test issue. I said sure, and a few weeks later I got an issue in the mail that was very different. The graphics, layout, and typography were different, but the biggest change was the size of the magazine. It was the same size as every other magazine in the world and had a glossy thicker cover. I didn’t mind the changes, I’m not one to be stuck on traditions if improvements can be made.
It turns out that they have decided to adopt the size change. I’m expecting to hear a decent outcry from people that haven’t had to weigh the options that the magazine has had to. From the NY Times:
“All you’re getting from that large size is nostalgia.” But as [Jann Wenner, founder, publisher, and editor] knows well, nostalgia is a powerful marketing force, as is a package that instantly evokes not only the product, but an era.
And then:
Rolling Stone, published every other week, has paid circulation in the United States of more than 1.4 million, the highest in its history, but its single-copy sales have fallen from 189,000 in 1999, to 132,000 last year. Magazine racks at bookstores, newsstands and checkout counters tend to be made for the standard dimensions, and if Rolling Stone is there, it is often on a high or low shelf, out of eye level, or even on its side or folded over.
I personally think that one factor in the drop in sales can be attributed to their style of writing. Though they keep winning awards, they have a very harsh liberal tone that is an immediate turn off to a huge chunk of America. Liberal America is their target audience, and they express their views in many acceptable ways, but there are also always the below-the-belt immature jabs at people or ideas they disagree with. They have every right to write whatever they want, and who knows, the shock factor may actually be increasing readership. But it seems to me that subscriptions going up= hardcore followers that like when they call George Bush a monkey, and occasional rack buyers going down= people that have been turned off for some reason and decided not to buy issues as often unless there is something in it they are very interested in.
