No Bull
So the same day Reptile pokes some friendly fun at Benjamin Briggs of Toro, the magazine announces it is shutting down. Coincidence? I hope so.Frankly, I have always admired the reps at Toro who have had to launch a major-league magazine without the infrastructure of a major-league publishing company. Then PMB 2005 comes out and finds them less than one reader per copy which doesn't exactly make the job any easier. Still, they sold lots of ads including many exclusive to the magazine (meaning they made the magazine advertising pie larger).
I'm surprised that Toro is being shut down. Was there any attempt to find a buyer? Unless the ads were being given away for a mere fraction of the rate card, it sure had the appearance of a successful magazine. The final issue ran nearly 50 pages of ads with a rate-card page rate of $17,000. Even with the requisite discounts, bonus and contra, that issue should have produced at least $500,000 in ad revenue. That is much more than many successful Canadian magazines.
Not having much circulation revenue was not an issue since few Canadian magazines actually earn a profit on circulation after accounting for marketing, fulfillment and staff costs. And the up-front investment to get a critical mass is huge.
A long, hard look at the expense side of this magazine might have found a cure short of closure. Or perhaps "suspending publication" is a secret-handshake-club signal meaning "for sale". After all, suspend is defined as "to come to a stop, usually temporarily".
posted by Reptile at 12:15 PM
2 Comments:
Hmmm, perhaps the money has gone to funding the Bratti (sp?) Bro's lifestyle including a box at the ACC plus platinum seats and trips to NY on private rail car where the conductor was left with no choice but to turn their car around due to their shenanigans. Maybe it went to help fund their annual Grey Cup football parties at their cottage.
Who knows? One thing is for sure: Dad gave the boys their inheritance prior to his death for a reason...sad that the only one who has done something with it has seemingly failed.
But then, I'm just spouting rumours here.
Planning Supervisor
Hey Reppy...
just a quick peek into the math
I may be way off here....but take a look
Payroll (average of $4k per month)
$4,000 x 25 = 100,000 x 12 = $1.2 million
Rent
$5,000 x 12 = $70,000
Cost to print
$1 x 185,000 x 6 = $1.1 million
Misc
$4,000 x 12 = $48,000
TOTAL 2.4 million
(note: Bill Shields said it was going to cost about 2.3 for their first year, so I am not that far off)
I doubt these guys were making $500,000 per issue. If they were, then 6 x 500,000 = 3 million and a profit of $600K
I figure they were probably around $350,000 to $400,000 an issue and their expenses were WAY higher than 2.4 million. I bet they were around 2.6 million and if you are only bringing in 2 million bucks, you are LOSING 600K a year or $50,000 per month.
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