Arizona Highways Magazine in trouble!

[evenstar]

This was in today's Arizona Republic. Would be a terrible shame to see this magazine go under. The day I arrived home from Michigan with Richie Rich I took out a three year subscription for the couple who gave him to me; renewed it for another three years last year. Has anybody done something nice for you and you're not sure how to repay them? A subscription to Arizona Highways would be just the thing, especially if they're out of state. The couple who gave Rich to me have fallen in love with The Wonderful Land of AZ through Arizona Highways.


http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0630azhighways0630.html

And BTW....if you're not a subscriber you should be!





Iconic magazine to make tough choices to survive
Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 30, 2007 12:00 AM

Like an old cowpoke, Arizona Highways seems to be fading into the sunset, losing readers in a modern world, drifting toward possible extinction.

The state-owned magazine's circulation has dropped an average of 10 percent annually during the past four years. It operates at a deficit. Arizona lawmakers have raided reserve funds to a point where almost nothing is left.

A financial outlook prepared earlier this year shows a million-dollar debt by 2010. And Publisher Win Holden says he already has cut everywhere possible, reducing the staff by 45 percent. advertisement




What remains unclear is whether Arizona Highways, arguably the most famous publication of its kind, faces a withering death, a sale to private enterprise or some sort of rescue.

"I believe that, without a change in strategy, the magazine will be dead in five to seven years," said Peter Aleshire, recently replaced as the publication's editor.

If Arizona Highways does vanish, Arizona will lose an icon largely responsible for establishing its worldwide reputation for scenic splendor while luring millions of visitors each year. For more than eight decades, the magazine's glossy pages have painted the state as a fantasyland of natural beauty, Indian culture and Western lore.

Bob Early, who served as editor before Aleshire, said Arizona Highways is "in a free fall" because nothing is being done to market the monthly. "This magazine brings in hundreds of millions of tourism dollars every year," he added. "And, without it, you'd lose that."

Holden, now in his seventh year as publisher, is blunt about the plummeting circulation. Earlier this year, he made a presentation to Arizona Department of Transportation administrators listing survival strategies. Among them:


• Ask the Legislature to subsidize Arizona Highways with tax dollars, as it did until 1982.


• Rescind a prohibition on advertising, allowing the magazine to operate like a business.


• Sell the 82-year-old publication to private enterprise.

Holden said the forecast and alternatives were based on a "worst-case scenario," and efforts are under way to improve finances. He also stressed that he does not support selling ads or the magazine.

What, then, is Arizona Highways going to do?

Holden gritted his teeth. "The plan right now is to try to stabilize the operation and do the best we can to get it to break even."


Readership dwindling


Paid circulation peaked in the 1970s when there were 507,000 subscribers in 50 states and 120 nations. Today, with 182,476 customers, Holden said Arizona Highways is still relatively large for a regional publication. But the trend seems inexorable, cutting readership nearly in half over a decade. At that rate, prospects for survival until Arizona's 2012 centennial seem iffy.

Some of the decline can be attributed to a malady afflicting many publications in the TV-Internet Age: People have too little time and too many electric gizmos to sit down and dawdle over periodicals.

"Arizona Highways is not alone," said Bob Boze Bell, executive editor at True West Magazine, which focuses on popular history. "Many mainstream magazines are in a free fall, losing circulation right and left. We're all in the fight of our lives. . . . This Internet is a tsunami change."

That problem is magnified by the geriatric nature of Arizona Highways' audience: More than half of the subscribers are 65 or older, and readership is literally dying off daily.


Unique editorial identity


Founded in 1925 by the state Department of Transportation, Arizona Highways has always been a hybrid. The magazine is blocked from selling ad space, the lifeblood of most publications, by state law. Without commercial entanglements, publishers were able to create a unique editorial identity, covering offbeat places and people rather than standard tourist attractions pushed by advertisers.

They also made Arizona Highways a pioneer in photography, especially color reproduction, using pictures from some of America's greatest landscape photographers. The first all-color edition, in 1946, featured a cover photo of Navajo children taken by Barry Goldwater.

Today, Holden said, Arizona Highways is believed to be the nation's last government-owned magazine subsisting only on paid subscriptions. It retains a reputation for glorious visuals and high-caliber journalism. A survey of subscribers in 2001 indicated that 99 percent were satisfied or very satisfied with content.

O'Neil Associates Inc., which documented the nose-diving circulation, nevertheless concluded, "It is clear that there is no fundamental flaw with the magazine itself that is driving subscribers away."

Added Holden: "The vast majority of correspondence we receive is positive. I mean, people love the magazine."

So what's the problem? Researchers with the Behavior Research Center put it succinctly: Arizona Highways "does not appear to be successfully marketing to younger newcomers."


Failed strategies


In 2002, Holden announced a three-year marketing strategy to stop the subscription bleeding. His plan projected 45,000 new subscribers. Instead, Arizona Highways went downhill like an 18-wheeler with no brakes. In 2004, after 27,000 customers quit the magazine, Holden blamed the 9/11 aftermath, a soft economy, an aging readership and stiff competition in the publications industry. Nevertheless, he declared, "our objective is to arrest the decline."

The magazine increased, decreased and then increased subscription fees, which are now $24. A promotional plan was developed to decorate egg cartons with magazine covers. Nothing worked.

Early, the former editor, said he pleaded for direct-mail promotional campaigns but always lost. "I kept saying, 'You can't sell anything if people don't know about the product,' " Early said. "But they just gave up. They were running out of money. And they just quit marketing."

Today, Holden said there is no strategy to revive readership because there is no money for marketing. A reserve fund of nearly $11 million, built up during profitable years, has been consumed by annual deficits and legislative withdrawals that put $8 million into other government operations.

"We have contemplated going down there and asking for some of it back," Holden said.

However, he added, even if there were dollars for more promotion, it might not be cost-effective: Not enough new customers sign up to pay for the mailings.

Asked how much was spent this year luring readers, Marketing Director Kelly Mero said, "For the circulation department, that's really zero."

Since taking the helm in 2000, Holden has eliminated 35 of 80 jobs at the magazine. He outsourced the customer-service center. He used up a five-year backlog of stories waiting to be published.


Tweaking the content


Four years ago, a legislative proposal surfaced to sell Arizona Highways. Holden and a host of magazine supporters beat it down.

Today, the publisher remains dead-set against tainting the pristine and venerable pages with commerce. If private owners take control and sell ads, he predicted, stories about backcountry hideaways or Native American lore will be replaced by banal features on Phoenix resorts and Scottsdale. "In my view, you wreck it. You kill it."

Robert Stieve, the new editor, said he wants to tweak the magazine's content, covering topics that lure in a younger audience without alienating the baby boomers who already subscribe.

"There's a perception issue that has to change," Stieve said. "A lot of people think of it as 'my grandmother's magazine.' "

Those efforts will be coupled with an e-mail campaign to reach Internet readers. But the magazine's digital edition is hardly thriving. Available for 18 months, it has just 359 online subscribers.

Holden said the big-picture plan is to let Arizona Highways shrink into a lesser role. This year, income from trademark products sold online and at an airport store equaled revenues from the magazine.

"We believe the brand is far more important than any particular delivery mechanism," Holden said.


Promoting tourism


Under state law, the mission of Arizona Highways is to promote tourism.

Holden and others point out that it is unfair to measure the magazine's worth based only on the bottom line because it is also a major stimulus for the tourism economy.

Calculating that financial benefit has been guesswork, however. Since 2002, published reports have credited Arizona Highways with dramatically varying impact amounts, from $35 million to $300 million.

Regardless of what number is used, the publication became a part of Arizona's lore, even as it helped build the state with images sent around the globe. Ellen Bilbry, an Arizona Parks Department spokeswoman who has a lifetime collection of Arizona Highways at home, said the magazine carries a value beyond budget and circulation figures.[/url][/url]
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John Richardson and Richie Rich, El Perro de Playero
http://members.tripod.com/~evenstar/index.html
http://www.arizonahikers.com
When the Man waked up he said, "What is Wild Dog doing here?" And the Woman said, "His name is not Wild Dog anymore, but the First Friend, because he will be our friend for always and always and always. Take him with you when you go hunting."
--Rudyard Kipling, from Just So Stories, 1902

[RC]

I'd be in real trouble without my monthly AZ Hwys fix... Let's hope they don't have to resort to advertisement. But, it'd be better than losing the magazine all together!
_________________
"When a man is tired of Arizona, he is tired of life"
Forget the box, just think outside!

[thesuperstitions]

I actually tried to subscribe a while back and never heard back from them! Guess it's time to try again...



OK... just subscribed through magazines.com. Hope to see a copy in my mailbox soon.

[threedogz]

If they made their magazine more interactive for readers like putting in opinions and stories from readers adventures with their photography it may be more appealing to many.
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You can never eat too much candy...

[azbackpackr]

I have subscribed for 21 years, ever since I moved to Arizona, but was very familiar with the magazine while growing up in San Diego.

AZ Highways has tried to appeal to some of us outdoor adventurers over the past 8 or 10 years, publishing many articles about backpacking, kayaking, rafting, rock climbing, etc. When I talk to other hikers and backpackers I am always astonished at how few do subcribe.

At the grocery store the magazine often is displayed at the checkout, along with all the tabloids and decorating magazines. I am embarrassed to be a woman sometimes when I see the total crap other women will spend their hard-earned money to buy and read. We spend thousands on public education, teaching kids to read, so that they can grow up and read tabloids? It's disgusting.

The subscription is pretty cheap. I, too, have given subscriptions as gifts. I always buy the calendars, too.

As far as high quality journalism is concerned, I wouldn't put Arizona Highways on the top of my list. They always tend to sugar-coat everything, and never cover anything very controversial or complex. However, it is a neat magazine in many ways and it would be very sad to see it fold.

[mick]

I used to subscribe several years ago for my Dad in Ireland. It was a great Christmas gift if I may say so myself. However my Dad would only recieve 7 to 8 issues a year and so declined to continue with the service.

[sacred_datura]

[evenstar]

[ChefTIO]

AZ Highways was one of the many reasons I moved down here. I remember growing up in the 60’s and looking at issues at my grandparents place, in Iowa, they had sitting around on their coffee tables. I always wanted to move down here because of that when I was old enough to in part of what I saw in the pictures. The day before this article came out I renewed my subscription for another 2 years. I am curious though is that why Arizona Highways is part of AZ Department of Transportation and not part of AZ Department of Tourism? I would only guess there would be more funds available for Arizona promotions in that department instead of AZDOT which needs all the money they can get to keep up with the growth in the city. The future doesn’t look good at this time, but you never know who may step in and have an idea on how to turn this downhill slide of circulation in the other direction.