Magazines We Miss

[Dan Hughes]

I saw in the New York Times last week that Bird Talk magazine has folded. And that got me to thinking:

I used to write regularly for Treasure Quest magazine. I subscribed to Treasure and Treasure Search and Treasure Found and True Treasure and Treasure World.

What do these magazines have in common? None of them exist now.

Why did they all disappear?

In this episode of In the Treasure Corner, we examine several reasons that magazines find it difficult to survive today.

Listen at In the Corner with Dan Hughes.

 

[ticm]

No thank you.

 

[Mackaydon]

You can add Treasure Diver to the list.

 

[Dan Hughes]

You can add Treasure Diver to the list.

Thanks, Mackaydon, didn't know that one. (I'm a landlubber.)

 

[Viddy]

It all comes down to business and technology. Magazines are a business, and if they are not at least breaking even, if not making a profit, it's a matter of time before the owner pulls the plug. Technology, not just the internet, affects businesses, their products, job classifications, and much more. Yes, the internet put a lot of paper media out to pasture, but also other businesses like video rental stores. Look at cell phones. Not only did they put a damper on the land-line, but GPS makers like Garmin and TomTom took a hit by people, like me, using GPS apps on their phones. How about the job 'telephone operator', remember those folks?

Some magazines make a come back though! look aat American Survival Guide. It was a magazine that was big in the 90's preparing people with info, vendors, and advice for surviving the Y2K apocalypse that never happened. Now the magazine is back out to the demand of the 'doomsday prepper' community, and it's doing well again.

 

[Dan Hughes]

Yes, the internet put a lot of paper media out to pasture, but also other businesses like video rental stores....

Especially the mom and pop video stores, which either went under or bought tanning booths. (Never understood the connection between videos and tanning, but a lot of stores around here did both.)

The internet has pretty much killed music CDs (when's the last time you saw a music store in a mall?), and now DVDs are also fast disappearing as people subscribe to Hulu and Netflix.

I'm 65, but the changes I've seen since the 1950s are just unbelievable.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

I no longer buy them new, sometimes I buy used cheap. I get more stories and info here in 1 hour than I ever got out of the mags.

 

[Dan Hughes]

I no longer buy them new, sometimes I buy used cheap. I get more stories and info here in 1 hour than I ever got out of the mags.

And except for the reviews of new detectors, most magazines from 1975 have pretty much the same material as the ones coming out today.

 

[Frankn]

Here's my view.
Technology is eating up more and more mags. The survivors are getting smarter. I get about 10 mags a month, but I only pay $8 to $12 a year for each sub. The survivors realize that the adds pay for the mags so they offer very low rates to keep there circulation up. I have even gotten a sub. for free . The circulation keeps the adds coming in, and the higher the circulation the more they get for the adds. I decided to cut the number of car mags. I get so I just renewed Automobile. Now I just got an offer from Car & driver for $8 a year or $12 for two years. Yes it's gotten cutthroat in the mag business, so go for the bargains. Frank

 

[Mackaydon]

Same for one particular real estate investor magazine.
For years, I subscribed and paid. Today, I get it for free.
And while off the subject (sorry) I heard this AM of one post office in New Hampshire that will be opened for only 30 minutes a day, Mon-Fri. To quote Bob Dylan "The Times They Are A-Changin''..... fast.
Don...

 

[Dan Hughes]

I'm in a similar situation! I get Popular Photography for $12 a year, and a couple of computer magazines for about the same. That's it! The only magazines I subscribe to now, whereas back in the day I got dozens of them.

 

[Frankn]

Some offer you a sub for $12 and a free gift sub. I order the sub and tell them to add the gift sub on to mine consecutively. Frank

 

[Dan Hughes]

Some offer you a sub for $12 and a free gift sub. I order the sub and tell them to add the gift sub on to mine consecutively. Frank

I'll flash your own Thumbs Up avatar to that idea!

 

[Dan Hughes]

Frank, I just pulled out a 1969 issue of True Treasure. Subscription was $2.75 per year, or $5 for two years!

 

[Keppy]

And except for the reviews of new detectors, most magazines from 1975 have pretty much the same material as the ones coming out today.

...... Your right there take any treasure mag. from 1975..1985 ... 1995 and now..... All the stories are about the same and all the information about the same... how to find hunting spots .. how to do research... how to dig a hole.... ect...ect...ect........ I have old mags and videos.. and they still tell you the same thing and the same way............There is not to many different ways to do what we do...........

 

[pa plateau hiker]

You ask what magazines we miss. I miss all the photography magazines that have gone digital. I don't own a digital camera and never plan on buying one. If I need a quick shot, I will borrow my daughters camera. I shoot film. small, medium and large format. I was at Barnes and Noble several years ago and out of 16 magazines, 15 were digital. The lone film magazine was "View Camera" which pertains to large format cameras. Of couse I bought it.

 

[Dan Hughes]

You ask what magazines we miss. I miss all the photography magazines that have gone digital. I don't own a digital camera and never plan on buying one. If I need a quick shot, I will borrow my daughters camera. I shoot film. small, medium and large format. I was at Barnes and Noble several years ago and out of 16 magazines, 15 were digital. The lone film magazine was "View Camera" which pertains to large format cameras. Of couse I bought it.

I subscribed to Modern and Popular back in the day, and two others whose names escape me - I think one might have had "35" in the title, and the other one was a professional magazine free to pros (I was a wedding photographer who also did some newspaper work). Camera 35 and The Rangefinder, I think they were called?

I still get Popular, only because their subscription price is $12 a year and I'm a sucker for a bargain. But I don't read it cover to cover like I used to. Too many articles about Photoshop, which I don't use (and don't understand). I use digital cameras now - I have two that look like SLRs and have an eyehole viewfinder - and a couple of simple editing programs that didn't take a year to learn (like Photoshop does).

If you're still into film, I guess you can get some unbelievable SLR cameras at giveaway prices. I have a nice Canon and Nikon that I'd sell in a minute if I could get a decent price, but I don't think anyone wants them anymore. (Let me know if I'm wrong!)

My favorite camera for weddings was my Yashicamat 124G (I had three of them!). And I miss those days, but I don't miss having to wait a week for the film to come back from the processor, nor the cost of a professional lab.

 

[pa plateau hiker]

Which is why I process my own film. My dad built a darkroom for himself in 1960, After he passed away, I took it over. When I started out in photography, I sent my film out to be processed. I can take a machine processed 35mm negative and print a better quality picture. I have thousands of poor quality machine prints that I am dissatisfied with. I love my darkroom.

 

[hvacker]

You ask what magazines we miss. I miss all the photography magazines that have gone digital. I don't own a digital camera and never plan on buying one. If I need a quick shot, I will borrow my daughters camera. I shoot film. small, medium and large format. I was at Barnes and Noble several years ago and out of 16 magazines, 15 were digital. The lone film magazine was "View Camera" which pertains to large format cameras. Of course I bought it.

I still can't look at a medium or large format camera w/o drooling a little. My last was a Rolleiflex. Stolen. My father was a pro and I spent many hours staring back at him behind his Speed Graphic as he used us kids as models. My nephew shoots a lot, both film and digital but his preference is still film. What he does though is have the film processed and scans the images into Photoshop. I can understand as I find darkrooms exhausting. Maybe too much time on my feet.
I do miss the smells and watching the magic. I kid my wife when she's using her digital to "Stop wasting film!"

 

[hvacker]

Along with all my distractions electronics is amongst them. The popular mags are gone. I still don't know why as large as the world is it can't seem to support an electronic hobbyist mag.
I can see many mags about guns, cars, cooking in stores, but no electronics. The Internet isn't the same. How can mags like Life be put on the Internet? It's witnessing the death of photojournalism. Little exists anymore. Sometimes I see published photos of our many wars. These pictures aren't seen by hardly anyone because there is no longer a format to publish them in any real capacity. Most will end up in a coffee table publication and the rest in a drawer somewhere. Too bad as what a camera does best is capture history. We won't have one. What the Internet created in one place it killed another.
And now my last defense of paper publishing is gone. You can take the Internet with you to the restroom.