Indian car magazine anniversary issue dilemma.More advertisements than content?PROVEN

[Hussain]

“8th Anniversary issue.Massive 500 pages.”
“9th Anniversary issue. 456 pages.”

September editions of Autocarindia and Overdrive read thus.You are buying ‘massive’ anniversary issues full to the brim with content.Thus you are paying a higher rs.100 price for the anniversary special.Just when you foresee more content from the Godzilla sized magazines,you realise that their anniversary issue is a celebration for the magazines bean counters.Rather than for you.The solely ‘massive’ factor about our beloved Indian automag anniversary issues is the advertisements.You heard me right.You have paid almost twice the amount for more advertisements.Cant argue with the numbers=

Overdrive Out of a total of 456 pages,127 are full page advertisements.Hence YOU are paying with your time and money to read a car magazine which is about 1/3rd advertisements.Yet Overdrive numbers pale in comparison to Autocarindia.

Just study Autocarindias numbers.For autocarindia of a magazine size of 440 pages,a shocking 251 pages are full page advertisements. In percentage terms, 57% of the Autocarindia September ’07 magazine is advertisements.

Autocarindia score = 251 Fullpage Ads out of 440 pages(57%)
Overdrive score = 127 Fullpage Ads out of 456 pages (28%)

These insulting numbers exclude the smaller page ads on content pages like the autocarindia new buyers guide has ICICI ad strips at the bottom or the pitpass section which has Amazon battery ads at the bottom.Eager to read on your comments.

[moralfibre]

Good analysis in there Hussain. 57% of advertisements is something and atleast 5% in the content is: Direct lifted material (Plagiarism from Autocar India?)

[Sam Kapasi]

I do not disrespect or disregard your observation there Hussain. As an advertiser in both these magazines I have an equal and opposite argument to offer.

It is wrong to use an anniversary issue (any magazine) as a benchmark to draw a conclusion. Anniversary issues are a big deal to any magazine and the staff are instructed to generate as much revenue as possible for this once in a year issue.

The magazine, per se, is absolutely full of ads as you rightly pointed out - but there is also a lot of content (DVDs, pull outs calenders and what not) that you get free with it.

While these too may be sponsored, they are a source of entertainment and education too for the reader.

Auto magazines and lifestyle magazines and gadget magazines have one thing in common. It can be fun to see the ads. It is as much fun to see an Audi ad in autocar, as it is to see a loius vuitton ad in Verve or Elle or an Apple ad in T3.
These are themed magazines with a narrow spectrum of readers with a common interest.

The same cannot be said of an atta ad in India Today. There is no theme.

Lastly - you pay 1$ for an Autocar in India. Somebody has to pay for the cost of printing the magazine, the distribution, the salaries of the staff, the petrol for the research and the other million things that go into bringing the magazine to you.

Would you be willing to pay 10$ for an auto magazine like the rest of the world does?

Again, I'd like to add that I respect your observation, but there is always another side to the story.

[BUSA]

Hussain Your absolutely right, i can still forgo ODs adverts since there was lots of quality contents, the track days and all but ACI did a crazy job of putting so many adverts. Wheras i agree with Sam but that they have to pay for staff fuel etc but do they need to advertise the magazine as 450pages or so when truly its just 200pages. Trust me nobody likes to read adverts and nobody would even read all the adverts, infact i finished reading the magazine in 10 mins, but the OD which i bought before ACI i still have not finished reading, from now on i guess i am going to give ACI a sure shot miss.

[esteem_lover]

Thanks for presenting the other side, Sam.

No offence, but I still cannot digest that we have to pay more to see more ads.

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

Anniversary issues are a big deal to any magazine and the staff are instructed to generate as much revenue as possible for this once in a year issue.

I agree ads are sometimes better than the articles, but please do not expect the consumer to pay for their annual parties. You have a party, please foot your own bill, don't squeeze the consumer, who is already squeezed.

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

Somebody has to pay for the cost of printing the magazine, the distribution, the salaries of the staff, the petrol for the research and the other million things that go into bringing the magazine to you.

Would you be willing to pay 10$ for an auto magazine like the rest of the world does?

And consumers too have to pay taxes, electricity bills, telephone bills, petrol bills, medical bills & amongst all these bills still find the resource to pay for a magazine that is full of stuff which is not worth your 'extra' money.

I would be willing to pay for what i get. whether it is Rs.10 or Rs.1000/-.

Just putting forward a consumers' point of view.
cheers

[Rtech]

Sam, while I agree whole heartedly to your points from the other side, I myself would feel extremely short changed as a reader to find that more than half the issue consists of advertisements.

Now that would not hurt so much if the magazine cost the same. BUT, here we have a situation where they raise the cost of the magazine by a good 65% and provide no additional value for that amount!

To add to the grief, subscribers DID NOT receive any of the free gifts or DVD's you refer to. I have no idea what other items were included with the ACI issue. Atleast the Overdrive issue came with a DVD. Ofcourse, i guess you could argue that a subscriber also did not pay extra for that issue.

I do agree that I too like to check out the ad's. But 250 plus pages of ad's is rubbish.

[narayan]

while from the magazines point of view is always ok to put more and more ads, make the front and back covers open up ten times over to fit in MORE ads....i dont think these aniversary issues are any different from regular issues. even the regular ones im sure would be nearly 40% ads only...

price comparisons between india and the west is COMPLETELY pointless....!!

in india - u can get a good meal for Rs50-80 - can u buy a meal in the west for the equivalent USD1.2-2 ?? not really - same applies to a lot of stuff which are "cheaper" in India than in west ( there is something called purchasing power parity...) - anyway not going OT.....

from a consumers point of view, what one can do is to go for an ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION which dramatically reduces the cost ( i thin 1 year subscription brings down cost by nearly 20-30 % )

[Sam Kapasi]

Originally Posted by Rtech

Now that would not hurt so much if the magazine cost the same. BUT, here we have a situation where they raise the cost of the magazine by a good 65% and provide no additional value for that amount!

Originally Posted by esteem_lover

Thanks for presenting the other side, Sam.

No offence, but I still cannot digest that we have to pay more to see more ads.

Then - in this case - we are specifically discussing only the anniversary issue of the magazines, aren't we?
The title of the thread refers to Indian car magazines in general.

[narayan]

i think its the case with regular issues also....all though thematic ads and some of the automobile ads are worth looking at

[Rtech]

The title of the thread refers to Indian car magazines in general.

Correct. Will make the necessary change in the title of this thread.

[GTO]

Holy crap!! Thats almost 60% of the pages being ads. I did feel that the ACI anni issue had a ton load of ads, but I never imagined its an overwhelming majority. I even remember some BHPians commenting on the same in the other magazine thread.

@ Sam : Absolutely not man! Are we paying to read advertisements or content? I can understand that there are bills to be paid, but you really dont need 250+ pages of ads to foot the bills. Again, you may enjoy seeing the adverts but I dont. I want to read on car stuff....test-drives, news, scoops etc. Its a car magazine, remember? If it was ACI's 8th anni, it was also OD's 9th anniversary. How come they have kept the balance much more reasonable? Its a simple business decision and one that I dont agree with as a reader.

If the numbers are correct, its a terribly disappointing state of affairs.

@ Rt : I still dont agree. Whether I am paying 50 bucks or a 100, having more ads than content just doesnt cut it.

[Sahil]

Any idea how much ACI charges for a full page ad?

[BUSA]

Any idea how much ACI charges for a full page ad?

Sam would be in a better position to answer that.

from a consumers point of view, what one can do is to go for an ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION which dramatically reduces the cost ( i thin 1 year subscription brings down cost by nearly 20-30 %

To add to the grief, subscribers DID NOT receive any of the free gifts or DVD's you refer to. I have no idea what other items were included with the ACI issue. Atleast the Overdrive issue came with a DVD. Ofcourse, i guess you could argue that a subscriber also did not pay extra for that issue.

The DVD consisted of the Bugatti Veyron at full throttle and all.

[Sam Kapasi]

Originally Posted by Sahil

Any idea how much ACI charges for a full page ad?

It would not be right to discuss such figures here. Most advertisers pay a confidential rate to advertise in any magazine.

It's not cheap.

[Zappo]

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

Lastly - you pay 1$ for an Autocar in India. Somebody has to pay for the cost of printing the magazine, the distribution, the salaries of the staff, the petrol for the research and the other million things that go into bringing the magazine to you.

Would you be willing to pay 10$ for an auto magazine like the rest of the world does?

Aah! Uncle Sam... so you have exported your currency to this country as well.

I won't say more as I see that for a change this time the monkey is really on your back Suffice it to say that I do not really agree with your logic.