Circulation of N Scale Magazine and N Scale Railroading?

[Pete Steinmetz]

I am trying to find the approximate circulation of both N Scale Railroading and N Scale Magazine.  Both should be public, but I don't seem to be able to find them on the internet.  I don't have either magazine to check.  I believe magazines are required to publish their circulation numbers once a year.

Thanks,

Pete Steinmetz

[John]

You could also email them.  Kirk and Pam seem pretty responsive

[ljudice]

Peteski  said this on 2011 on the Atlas forum:

http://forum.atlasrr.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=68223

 

[bbussey]

Those annual numbers are posted in the Nov/Dec issues of both magazines, as mandated by law.  The N Scale Magazine numbers are on page 10.  I don't have the N Scale Railroading issue handy at the moment.

[peteski]

Those annual numbers are posted in the Nov/Dec issues of both magazines, as mandated by law.  The N Scale Magazine numbers are on page 10.  I don't have the N Scale Railroading issue handy at the moment.

Yes, I brought up this exact topic here, last year, and also N-Scale Magazine circulation couple of years ago, back on the A-board.  This year, N Scale Mag. circulation is in low 7000s. I can get the exact number when I get home and look at the latest issue (unless someone beats me to it).

[alhoop]

Paid Circulation from the Nov/Dec 2013 issue of each:

N-Scale Mag 6719
N Scale Railroading 5828

It looks like N-Scale Mag gained a little over the last year and N-Scale Railroading lost a little.

Al

[Rossford Yard]

Yes, saw those numbers. I always check.  Not sure what they say.  In the next month, we will see MR's numbers, which stabilized last year after five years of dropping 10K per year.  From memory, they were about 140K last year.  Might have been 148K.  Pre-2000, they were more like 225K. 

Some of that is probably the overall drop in magazine readership, maybe there is that big a falloff in model railroaders as we age....not sure.

If the same ratio reported many years ago of 16% of MR readers being in N scale, that equates to 22K N scalers reading MR.  So, I wonder why the N scale mags are only 7K or less?  Has the MR ratio actually dropped, rather than N scale growing as we all used to speculate?  Do some just defect from MR to NSR and NS?  (i.e. the 22k is now 15K at MR, and others have migrated?)  Some other proportion?

We used to figure at least 2 modelers per MR copy, formerly 450K, now is it only 300K and less than 10% of those N scalers?

The inquiring mind wants to know.  It would seem as if N is holding its own in areas than magazine readership, but who knows?

[u18b]

I think when N-Scale was at its peak, it was around 10k-12k.

[JoeD]

My guess is the availability of N scale magazines in general is no where near that of MR.  I can get a copy of that just about anywhere...N Scale and N scale railroading...not so much.  Distribution may throw off the actual numbers.

Joe

[kalbert]

I think the only conclusion that can be drawn from any of this is magazines in general are not as relevant as they once were. Print is dead or at least dying as we know it. Model railroading is not. If either n scale rag had an E subscription I'd probably buy both. As it is I buy neither as the only time I could read them is when I have them near me. I can thumb through a MRH or MR or browse the web anywhere.

[kelticsylk]

Just to through in a comment...I buy N Scale and N Scale Railroading at the hobby shop, but not every shop I frequent carries them. I don't buy them regularly, so I don't get every issue.

I never had a subscription to MR but I used to buy it every month. I stopped because it always seemed like one long advertisement and the price kept going up. Then I found out I can subscribe to MR digitally and pay about half of what the paper copy costs. I'm still getting an advertisement but at the reduced price it bothers me less.

I have a library of MR, RMC, Trains and Railroad going back to the 1930's and I would still rather read the old issues. Some of the magazines were printed during the era I model and thus are way more informative than the new ones.

FWIW

[nkalanaga]

It's possible that forums, such as this one, have replaced magazines for many modelers.  The main reason I subscribed to the model magazines was for news and prototype plans.  The plans seem to be rare today, and the news is (naturally) a month or more out of date.  Not a problem before the Internet, as there was no faster way to get it, but not that useful today.  By the time a product 's arrival is in the magazine, it's already sold out!

[Scottl]

I can't buy them except by subscription, and the latter suffers from inflated cost due to shipping to Canada.  I don't think those numbers say much about the international n scale community, they are clearly regional magazines.

I was pleasantly surprised to look at the railroad magazine selection at a few shops in Germany and have found that many consistently sell several dozen magazines, including one or two n-scale.  If magazine sales and availability are a measure of the modelling population, there are a lot of Germans.  I think there are also a number of UK magazines.

[John]

My guess is the availability of N scale magazines in general is no where near that of MR.  I can get a copy of that just about anywhere...N Scale and N scale railroading...not so much.  Distribution may throw off the actual numbers.

Joe

 .. Wal-Mart seeems to have dropped MR.  I know the military exchanges have stopped carrying MR mags. 

[Chris333]

Around here all the small book stores closed up when they built a Borders store. Now a few years later Borders closed and now I have nowhere to go to get a mag. 

My Walmart has MR, but that is the one mag I subscribe to.