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Why does the September issue have less pages than usual?

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Posted by emdmike on Wednesday, August 8, 2018 8:12 PM

Add to that the shear loss of the smaller companies.  Just pick up a copy from the early 1990s, loads of small adds for brass and other smaller companies that are either gone in one form or another.  Or are taking advantge of the much cheaper and wider apeal of online advertising on various forums and groups.  The way model trains are sold, traded and advertised are changing fast, and while the paper magazines might be around for a few more years, the move to a total digital form is well under way.  Most younger modelers that I personally know do not read or bother with paper magaines, the want the website link to the information.  Not like when I was younger and needed to know what back issue to hunt down and buy. September is the dead month for lots of stuff.  Folks are recovering from back to school bills, end of summer vacation bills and enjoying outdoor activities as the chill of fall and the coming winter will soon be here.  For many, trains might be a rainy day activity this time of year, but far from the first thing on thier mind.       Mike the Aspie

Silly NT's, I have Asperger's Syndrome

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Posted by Graham Line on Wednesday, August 8, 2018 6:50 PM

Staff vacation time would not affect the page/story count. Ad revenue and seasonal readership patterns would.

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Posted by mobilman44 on Wednesday, August 8, 2018 4:40 PM

Ummmm, think SPRING VACATION  !!!

ENJOY  !

 

Mobilman44

 

Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central 

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Posted by DSteckler on Wednesday, August 8, 2018 3:15 PM

mobilman44

As a very long subscriber/reader (1st issue 12/55), having thinner issues in the summer is the norm, as is having extra thick issues for Nov, Dec, Jan.  Of course winter is historically "model train season".   

Several other magazines had a similar pattern - Playboy being the first one that comes to mind.

There is another factor (as I understand) in all this, and that is the simple fact that the good folks that make up MR and other mags tend to take their vacations in the summer as well.  

My thought.......enjoy the mag, be thankful you can still get it (on paper), and look forward to the next issue...........

 

 

I'm sure the August and September MRs had all content written and submitted some time in the spring.

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Posted by joe323 on Wednesday, August 8, 2018 6:23 AM

Outlets like Trainworld also have outlets that did not exist back in the day like Trainworld TV on YouTube that try to reach a wider audience.

Joe Staten Island West 

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Posted by mobilman44 on Wednesday, August 8, 2018 5:02 AM

As a very long subscriber/reader (1st issue 12/55), having thinner issues in the summer is the norm, as is having extra thick issues for Nov, Dec, Jan.  Of course winter is historically "model train season".   

Several other magazines had a similar pattern - Playboy being the first one that comes to mind.

There is another factor (as I understand) in all this, and that is the simple fact that the good folks that make up MR and other mags tend to take their vacations in the summer as well.  

My thought.......enjoy the mag, be thankful you can still get it (on paper), and look forward to the next issue...........

ENJOY  !

 

Mobilman44

 

Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central 

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Posted by angelob6660 on Tuesday, August 7, 2018 11:12 PM

MRVP videos also lost some of their content through the years also. 

What else why they asked for outside help.

Some new materials or subjects in which they will explore more in detail. In which they don't want to remake the same thing on a different layout that has a somewhat different method.

Modeling the G.N.O. Railway, The Diamond Route.

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Posted by DSteckler on Tuesday, August 7, 2018 8:48 PM

Valid points, everyone.  Thanks or your input!

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Posted by NittanyLion on Tuesday, August 7, 2018 7:48 PM

Shopcat
I remember my old MRs that were lush with ads. But the point was also made above that the editorial (written) content is not really lowered, but the amount and size of published ads is greatly reduced. 

Yeah.  There's just as much meat and potatos (articles) as there always was, but fewer veggies (the ads).  Remember the days that you'd have like eight pages of Trainworld ads?  They can probably accomplish just as much, or even more, in a single page ad now.

Also, a lot of the MRVP content does show up later on in the magazine.  Obviously, the videos can't, but the project layouts from the last couple years spent their actual development lives on MRVP.

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Posted by NWP SWP on Tuesday, August 7, 2018 4:00 PM

My pet peev is that some content is only accessible through MRVP and people like me who don't have access to high speed Internet to stream videos, so perhaps a condensed version of MRVPs content could appear in print.

Steve

If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough!

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Posted by Shopcat on Tuesday, August 7, 2018 3:27 PM

I was thinking about the slim version of MR that arrived on my desk a couple of days ago. My first reaction was similar to those above....hey...where is the rest of this great magazine? I remember my old MRs that were lush with ads. But the point was also made above that the editorial (written) content is not really lowered, but the amount and size of published ads is greatly reduced. 

That being said, I would like to point to the amount of content produced by MR/Kalmach of everything that is in MR....PLUS...the content in MRVP. Twenty years ago we didn't have such a vehicle as MRVP, and all of those items would be in the print mag. But isn't tech wonderful....that we can jam many more words and images and actual live work into a short video. So the amount of content that MR is producing monthly is hugely bigger than 20 years ago. And, I dare say....more robust. 

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Posted by BigDaddy on Tuesday, August 7, 2018 2:48 PM

A lot of their articles come from readers.  I haven't submitted one lately, have you?

Gerry Leone has an interesting video on MRVP called "Kinks" a column of reader tips that existed from the 30's to the 60's.  Asbestos, in various forms, was a popular modeling substance, back in the day.

Henry

COB Potomac & Northern

Shenandoah Valley

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Posted by NWP SWP on Tuesday, August 7, 2018 2:26 PM

Perhaps MR could consider at least one more article per issue, perhaps a track plan of the month? Vary from desk top switching to club sized layouts, have details, the inspiration, ect... this could work? 

Steve

If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough!

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Posted by riogrande5761 on Tuesday, August 7, 2018 1:56 PM

Copies vary in page number and content through out the year; this has always been the case.

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Posted by Graham Line on Tuesday, August 7, 2018 1:32 PM

Paper prices have increased significantly in the past several months because much of it comes from outside the US.

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Posted by MisterBeasley on Tuesday, August 7, 2018 12:34 PM

It's mid-summer.  It's not the time that most of us buy trains, and advertisers know that, so they save their budgets for late fall and winter.

Much of the content comes from outside the magazine too.  MR doesn't control that.

It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse. 

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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, August 7, 2018 12:19 PM

Perhaps you should count and compare pages with editorial content and not total pages.

We had a similar discussion sometime age with the result that the content had stayed constant but advertising had gotten less.
Regards, Volker

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Why does the September issue have less pages than usual?
Posted by DSteckler on Tuesday, August 7, 2018 11:32 AM

Recent issues have been 82 pages but the September issue is 74 pages.  Loss of advertisers?  Not enough subject matter for articles?  I think back fondly to the days when MR was 100+ pages!

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