magazines already fund their publishing by packing every FREAKING page full of ads...why not just make magazines free, and add more ads. the circulation would go up ("TIME for free? shoot, pick me up a copy!") and therefore they would get more money for each ad.
-- cybercyph, Jul 24 2000

law of diminishing returns http://www.bartleby...65/di/diminish.html
Economists believe that when resources are limited, effort in a single dimension eventually stops paying off. [jutta, Jul 24 2000]

Pay-for-read Weekly http://www.halfbake...y-for-Read_20Weekly
Why stop at 0 ? [jutta, Jul 24 2000]

But would the additional costs (lost subscription/newsstand revenue, increased printing costs due to larger size and) be less than the increased ad revenue? For some publications (e.g., the Village Voice - low-quality printing, mainly ads) it might be--and they do this--but for a more photo-dependent magazing like TIME you're talking nonnegligble costs.

Additionally, if the ads get too prevalent the circulation will drop. People aren't going to go out and pick up TIME if it's the size of a phone book.
-- bookworm, Jul 24 2000


But if circulation for a brand-name magazine like Time goes up orders of magnitudes, Time can then charge MUCH more for ad space, and can sell the same amount of ads for more money, offsetting costs.

I mean, I'm no finance major, so don't quote me.
-- jeddings, Jul 24 2000


to address the problem of phonebook sized time, they good create 2 editions: free and $3.....oh, and jutta: SIGN ME UP! who needs all advantage anyway!
-- cybercyph, Jul 24 2000


Baked. Web Techniques, InfoWorld, Internet World, and many other industry rags (in many industries) are free* to qualified** recipients. In this model the publisher has restricted circulation to a targetable subset of the population in an effort to make the advertising more effective and thus squeeze more revenue from it.

* "Free" meaning no money is exchanged. You do give them some marketing data.

** "Qualified" meaning that they are able to at least impersonate a person whose duties might include using the products or services of some of the advertisers.
-- jplummer, Jul 28 2000



random, halfbakery