By Steve Blume
Remember the days when printed magazines filled your mailbox? Those thick, colorful publications arrived daily—some wanted, some not. Have you noticed recently most printed magazines have gone away, one by one, and the survivors have become pretty skinny. Trailer Life Magazine, Motor Home Magazine and RV Lifestyle Magazine are gone. Family RVing Magazine from FMCA went from monthly to bi-monthly recently due to declining membership and advertising revenue. And a dozen popular regional magazines long ago published their last issues.
As a frequent writer for Tiffin Motorhomes’ magazine Roughing It Smoothly, I understand firsthand why it has now gone digital-only and will soon give way to other shorter targeted messaging. It’s not that the publishers lost interest, it’s because things changed.
We’ve changed
Digitization changed how we get our information, how long we spend absorbing it and when we want it. Just like the trends that sealed the fate of newspapers, we don’t sit around the breakfast table or on the porch casually perusing pages of text. We want instant digital media with links to follow if something is interesting.
We want to receive it on our phone, tablet or laptop. Because of that, readership of most surviving magazines is declining. The economics of printing and mailing changed; the huge machines capable of making coated magazine stock have declined over time, and their paper now allotted first to premier long-term publications such as Smithsonian, Time and National Geographic, to name a few.
The prices of paper for short run RV publications have doubled and tripled. The cost of commercial bulk and periodicals mail has also increased. Advertisers have more economical digital options that deliver their messages to more targeted media.
Online resources compete: RVers get information, reviews, and learn of resources online, including blogs, forums, phone apps, social media groups and websites with newsletters like RVtravel.com.
We got older
RVer demographics are changing, and as time goes by, younger RVers have less interest in traditional print publications. And, of course, RVs don’t have mailboxes, which means as more and more people travel full time and work remotely, printed magazines no longer easily reach them.
Magazine publishing becomes a losing proposition when you have declining readership, higher production costs and fewer advertisers willing to pay for decreasing exposure. There are a few printed magazines bucking the trend now and will be for a while, but going forward, my advice is to keep your batteries charged if you want to stay informed on RV life and travel.
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I still enjoy reading magazines & newspapers when they are well written. That is the problem killing them off. They are not well organized, they are written for word counts. How many news articles do you have to wade through hundreds of words to get to the real “meat” of it?
Not only that but they are filled with opinions and unrelated information.
RVTravel news hasn’t had that problem and is a big reason I look forward to each days issue.
Journalism is dead. It’s all about filling columns.
I agree. With most print media today (on paper or electronic), the full extent of “editing” is to ensure that there are no wavy red lines under any of the words…
Thank you, Robert. We appreciate your kind words, and we appreciate YOU! We continually strive to improve so our readers have the best experience, and receive the best information, possible. Have a great day. 😀 –Diane at RVtravel.com
Back in the day we subscribed to Trailer Life and then Motorhome Life. I enjoyed the content of both at first with the how to articles, product reviews, travel stuff, etc. Yes there were some ads and I understand they were financially necessary. As time went on those things I enjoyed about the magazines were diminished and page space was taken up by more ads, so much so that there were more ads than helpful information. Of course back then there wasn’t the plethora of info on the web. Times change and we have to adapt to it.
We still take a daily newspaper, but our subscription is now digital, not printed. Decades ago, we took two printed daily newspapers, one of which our sons delivered. 20 years ago, we went from taking two printed daily newspapers to one. Then we went to weekend only for the printed version and digital on weekdays. Finally, because we tired of starting and stopping the print verson deliveries when on long RV trips we went to digital only. Now, on cold snowbird mornings, we can read the paper (& RVtravel) in bed while the furnace warms the RV!
What do you put on the bottom of the bird cage? How do you train your puppy? What do you wrap dead fish in? Newspapers – totally recyclable.
Thank you, Steve! 🙂 I lacked the magazine side of the story until now. Thank you for providing it. We stopped subscribing to the print version of Consumer Reports because we never read it. We maintain our on-line subscription to easily do searches if we want to make an informed major purchase. I subscribed to Motorhome magazine until Camping World raided it. I save and eventually read the FMCA magazine and the Newmar owners group’s monthly magazine. I also subscribe to the “new Motorhome magazine,” RV Enthusiast. I call it that because the former editor of Motorhome, Bob Livingston, writes for it. Thanks again, have a great weekend, and safe travels! 🙂
And yet my physical mailbox is still jammed daily with printed junk mail and catalogs that immediately move right to the recycle bin. Many of those catalogs have covers that boldly annouce that it’s my last one unless I order something. I don’t order… they just keep coming!
I always pray oh please make this the last one.
What you wrote, is sad but true…however, I’m one of the “rare ones” who still like “paper”…I enjoy having the magazines because I can carry it around, read it where and when I want and save it for later too! Yes, I’m on the computer (too often), but still like the feeling of holding a book, a magazine, etc IN my hands, thank you!
One of the benefits of being an Escapee member is the magazine the club puts out. It is a first class publication with great articles on destinations, DIY projects, and club news. The magazine alone is worth the price of membership.
I used to get three different motorcycle magazines. Two just stopped publishing and the third more than doubled their subscription price, to over $50. They said publishing costs have increased and they needed to pass this on to the subscriber. Towards the end it was full of ads, every other page had multiple ads. I asked what they did with the money from the advertisers! No answer.
I still get the monthly American Motorcyclist magazine. It’s included in my $29 membership.
Paper printed magazines are about as obsolete as a VCR, music CD, coins, foldable maps and travelers checks. Yeah, one can certainly point out the 1% of the time they might have the advantage but the other 99% of the time, they’re just not all that.
While I’m ranting, let me throw some shade on Reader’s Digest who sells more drugs than El Chappo. Seriously, count the number of pages dedicated to drug ads versus articles. It’s sickening….
I for one miss them. One of my weekend pleasures was getting caught up on reading my printed periodicals by the fire. It’s not the same on my pad, and many of the places we go lack Internet anyway.
I enjoyed Trailer Life before Camping World merged it with its sister mobile home publication and turned it into a fashion/lifestyle magazine for possible newbies. Hey Marcus, we’ve already bought into the lifestyle. I wasn’t interested in a marketing brochure that I have to pay for. I won’t be paying to renew WildSam.
We used to enjoy Motorhome Life, it had information and even ads we found beneficial. Since Marcus Lemonis took over we found most of the info and ads no longer pertain to our current interest. Simple solution was to not renew our subscription to the magazine, no more junk mail. Should the previous format ever return we would again sign back up, but we all know that will never happen!
I still like printed newspapers and magazines. Won’t buy digital. I Use to like Trailer Life Magazine till Marcus Loomis stopped it and replaced it with a junk magazine. The down fall of newspapers are their own fault. Our local newspaper was going down hill, then they just sold it and is getting worse faster. Now they don’t put the evening lottery numbers in or breaking news after 4 pm. Heard they’re done printing it at 8pm and ship to the carriers by truck at 8 pm. Too much advertising anymore.