Is a print magazine still worth the price in 2022? | Column | Articles

As we all know, prices have gone crazy. It’s certainly not the time to buy a house or a car. 

Still, life goes on, and sometimes you must stick your neck out and make a major purchase. Personally, I’m thrilled to see Chris Tropea, who runs our video department, buy his first home–and perhaps more importantly, now have a decent garage. 

We were recently unlucky enough to need a new refrigerator here at the Suddard household. Refrigerators now cost what I used to pay for a decent project car. 

You probably aren’t focusing much on how our expenses have gone up. You probably enjoy our publication as an escape from the reality of rising prices, politics and trouble abroad. 

But I need to think about expenses here at the company, too. 

Despite coming back stronger after the pandemic, with ad revenue growing and circulation at an all-time high, the company’s costs have gone up even more. Postage keeps rising, and shipping magazines to newsstands has gone nuts. And not only has paper gotten more expensive, but we’ve delt with flat-out shortages as well. 

Then there are healthcare costs. Double-digit increases have been the norm for decades, yet we continue to provide insurance to all of our employees and their families at no cost.

At some point, we realized, we needed to look at what we charge for this product. And rather than slipping in a rate increase, I wanted to be transparent.

When we started publishing this magazine back in 1984, we charged $14.99 for a year. Then, more than 30 years ago, we had to increase the subscription price to $19.99.

And it’s been there ever since, even though that $19.99 is now worth about $40.00 in today’s money.  

Despite fierce competition from other niche publications as well as some larger, mainstream pubs, we ate the increased costs or put the burden on advertisers. We simply didn’t feel that we could increase our subscription price. 

In a fight to maintain their…