PasoVoice.Com :: Important !!!!!! Survey!!!!PFHW MAGAZINE and RESULTS

caliber · Site Admin

Magazine should come with your membership, next issue should be in May.

If you call the PFHW, I am sure they will mail you the last edtion.. also you can find it online at www.pasofinohorseworld.com

Paintedhorizon

Thanks Caliber!

Hacienda Radiante

Oh, geez, I don't even know where to START with this...

1. First off, the response rate is not 57%, it's more like 14% -- you don't divide by the number of emails opened, you divide the number sent (2000) by the number responded to (275). This is important when you realize that the 2000 original emails are only about a quarter of the PFHA membership (as far as I know, roughly 8K members), so the opinions of about 3% of the population are being heard... Not even sure if that is statistically significant. Anyone?

2. Cristy, I'm am TOTALLY with you on the truck thing. I buttonholed Mr Llewellyn at the last Nationals to tell him that face to face. I realize that he has taken on a tough project, with lousy timing (small membership base, bad economic environment for selling ad space), but I am seriously disappointed with the change in direction in the publication content. My guess is that he is trying to basically create 'advertorial content' on certain topics that will appeal to the Deep Pockets Advertisers out there (Ford, John Deere etc.). But I believe he is doing it at the expense of the editorial content that appeals to the Paso owner, while still trying to position the publication as the voice of the PFHA. Love the idea of an article on that hard-to-find Paso tack, but why interview National Bridle Shop (a fine retail establishment, but primarily a TWH tack provider) versus, say Kuda, Elegante or Casa Dosa? The content is getting so diluted that it's beginning to feel like a Horse&Rider wannabe.

3. I feel that the multiple mag-copies per household is a shabby attempt to increase the circulation numbers to appeal to the Big Ad money. The way this typically works is that a publisher takes the number of magazines they print, then applies a 'fudge factor' for pass along readership and pitches the 'revised' number to the ad buyer. So 8000 subscribers rapidly become 'a 20K readership' based on a guestimate. My household gets 5 copies of the magazine every issue, but there is only ONE person who is making purchase decisions (guess who!), so I feel this is misleading to the advertisers.

4. My understanding is that the PFHW magazine is a completely separate business entity than the PFHA itself and that the subscription $$ are not nearly enough to cover publishing costs, hence the attempt to make the advertising revenue support the publication. In our September conversation Mr. LLewellyn mentioned that he'd like to see the magazine appeal to the 'aspirational Paso owner' as well as the current one. I applaud this -- it would benefit the breed and the publication both -- but I haven't seen any attempts to promote the existance of either the online or the offline version of the magazine to non-Paso owners. Not sure if this was a change of heart or because the economic enviroment won't permit it, but if you are going to dilute content to make a publication more appealing to the less hard-core Paso owners (or people new to the breed) wouldn't you want to promote it? It seems to me that growing the readership is a more honest way of making the pub appealing to advertisers than artificially inflating the circulation numbers.

Long story short, I don't think the PFHW can have it both ways -- either it is a cozy little niche publication with content of specific interest to that niche (in which case, purge the truck articles and bring back the farm tours, show bills and suspension list gossip) or it is a broad-content pub meant to introduce the breed to aspiring owners (in which case, let's see some effort to get out in front of that readership).

**dismounting soapbox now**

cristy

I could not agree with you more! I find it very hard to believe the magazine cannot pay for it self though. Especially as espensive as the ads are.

I just did the math, and if you count all the ads as being run once (since it is a little cheaper if you run the multiple times) Just counting the advertising (NOT TO MENTION THE COST OF THE SUBSCRIPTION!)

the last months magazine had $27890 worth of advertisements not counting the classifieds. IF you add in the cost we pay for the subscriptions and they are not breaking even there is a problem!

I have to say after reading more of the comments I think they have done a pretty good job keeping it balanced, I just do not see it weighing toward the show side. dunno

Hacienda Radiante

Only newbies pay the listed 'rate card' rates. Likely they are having to discount significantly to sell the ad space. Also likely that they are swapping ad space for some services, so all of that eats into the bottom line. Keep in mind that the $28K or so you calculated needs to cover not just the production costs (freelance writer fees, paper, printing, binding), but also distribution costs (postage) and 'overhead' like the staff salaries, insurance, health coverage etc. Then there are things like the survey (which is actually a smart and appropriate thing to spend money on) and hiring the programmer or whomever to post content to the online version of the magazine.

It's a lousy time to be trying to run an advertising-revenue-based print publication, just ask the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun etc. Especially bad when the darn Paso Fino readership would rather log into a relevant, friendly forum to chat and find out news about the breed daily, rather than waiting 2 months for a printed pub to show up. Ooops! Guilty! Laughing