Free magazines are less valued & lack awareness, says MMR study

Was that a slight shiver that ran down the backs of the necks of controlled magazine publishers everywhere? Could be because they have seen a recent study commissioned by Emmis Communications, one of the largest publishers of city and regional magazines in the U.S. (Texas Monthly, Atlanta Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine, Indianapolis Monthly, Cincinnati Magazine).

The results of the admitedly self-serving study were recently reported to the 88-member City and Regional Magazine Association in the U.S and were published in an article in MediaDaily News. It says that consumer who receive unpaid subscriptions to upscale magazines are far less inclined to read them and -- when they do -- they value them less than magazines they pay for.

This has been an argument made for years by paid circ publishers, but there's never been much definitive to go by, except for the fact that controlled books tend to have lower readership in independent research like the Print Measurement Bureau.

The "affluent study" was carried out by Monroe Mendelsohn Research (MMR) and involved 2,250 randomly selected consumers in key markets. (We're not aware of -- but would be glad to hear about -- any similar study having been done in Canada, where controlled circulation is widely used and where newspaper-delivered magazines have proliferated.)

In Dallas, they found that only 4.5% of respondents had "never heard of" paid-circ Texas Monthly, while 80% were "unfamililar" with rival title Brilliant. Similar results were found in Atlanta and Los Angeles. (This, of course, may be yet another proof that branding helps people identify with a magazine, which is why eponymous city magazines or magazines with "Canadian" or "Toronto" in their name generally do better than those that do not).

Susie Love, executive vice president-director of sales and marketing at Emmis, says the company simply wanted to know what impact the incursion of free urban magazines were having on their market, and whether Emmis should also explore that approach. The answer, she says, was a definite "no."

"The reason we did it this was that we kept hearing from agencies and people from the [Magazine Publishers of America] making statements like, 'Does paid really matter?' We're built on paid circulation. And we felt if people are asking that question, we should find the answer."

Love says that following her presentation to the association, "eight or nine" other paid magazines are planning to conduct similar research in their markets.