A waiting room at home. How many magazines do you read?


Magazines come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. You name the lifestyle and there are at least a dozen competing mags on the market. More and more American’s coffee tables don magazine collections typical to most doctors’ offices. Averaging 4.95 a pop on the newsstand consumers jump at the chance for 70% off for the subscription. According to recent studies in the publishing industry most a majority of households have on average 5 magazine subscriptions.

How many subscriptions do we really need? Or for that matter are these magazines really worth our time. While I might feel that book prices are outrageously high, it just isn’t so when compared to the price of an off the rack magazine. Why are we paying to increase the advertising revenue of these companies? With advertisements on nearly every other page they should be paying us to read their mags.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m part of the problem. I’m part of the industry. I write for magazines and get paid for my work. It’s a living. Still, I question the business and the cost to consumers even with subscription level pricing. Television is one product, that for all intensive purposes is free because of advertising revenue. Why should the magazine industry be any different?

Just think about these things the next time you fork over 5 bucks at the airport newsstand, or a telemarketer calls you at night to sell you subscriptions.
  ¶ 4:46 PM