There are business implications to Stereophile's recent decision to drop comments. Namely, their web traffic will likely drop between 10% - 20%.
I don't believe in arguments from authority, except when they're from me. Since I worked on and ran tech web sites (with which the engineers on this site would be familiar) for 25 years, I will make them:
I see Stereophile's web site, as a matter of deliberate strategy, moving AWAY from being a site for readers. It is repositioning itself as a site aimed at advertisers (i.e., keeping current advertisers and appealing to potential new ones. We see this from their ending of comments, which kneecaps reader engagement (let's send our sympathy to Mr. Glotz). We see it in their new practice of loading up the site with "two paragraphs and a photo" posts about the latest tabletops at the current show. These posts are designed to get keywords onto google, so SP's sales folks can tell a marketing story to advertisers about how they give them visibility. Further, it covers up the fact that they have fewer and fewer lengthy reviews, which is undoubtedly a result of pressure on their editorial budget (i.e., the amount of money they have to pay freelancers each month).
Net, net, Stereophile is shifting from a site based on long articles of interest to readers to a DIRECTORY of equipment. As part of their marketing story, they are probably telling advertisers that "readers come here to search for equipment that they're planning on buying. So you, Ms. (/s) Advertiser, want to be here when they make that search." That's a much better spiel than "we don't run much in the way of interesting articles anymore, so we're starting to lose readers. And when those readers want to buy something, they go search on Google like everybody else."
I don't know if its very telling of anything but just today I received my July 2025 issue and it's the thinnest one in recent memory, 114 pages.
As for print Stereophile, the size shrinkage that
@Sal1950 points to is not because the pool is cold (Seinfeld reference), it's the natural trajectory of all print magazines since the web began its ascendancy in 1994. (Yes, I know it was invented '92. Early adopter publishers starting jumping on it ca. 1994. Anyway, that's when I launched my first online column.) To give SP credit, they have held on longer, much longer than most. Probably because of their almost total boomer demographic. But now the, er, transconductance of the audience is sagging way below spec, and there are fewer heaters burning the lights by which one can read print.
SP currently charges $5,000 for a full page ad, discounted to $3,000 if you buy it 12x (every issue). Industry ballpark average is 50% editorial, 50% ads. So let's say we have 55 pages of ads, and let's be generous and say they're booking $4,000 a page. That's $220,000 of ad revenue per month, plus de minimus subscription revenue. They're printing 70k copies. The press run, i.e. printing the mag, is hugely expensive. And then there's postage, which has gotten way more expensive than it used to be. And then finally there are staff salaries and the ever shrinking freelance budget. And rent, phones, whatever. They are likely barely breaking even or making little dribbles of cash. (The web site probably doesn't contribute much revenue. This phenomenon is called analog (ad) dollars into digital pennies.)
The inevitable next step after the 114 page issue that Sal mentions are: moving from perfect bound (having a spine like a book) to side saddle (three staples and a mule). Sorry. In English, this means the magazine is not thick enough to support having the cover glued to the spine. It's too thin, so it's just folded in half (like a tabloid newspaper) and you put staples in the fold to keep the pages from falling out.
And the next step after that will be to save money by cutting the trim size. This means using a smaller page, length x width. SP's current trim size is 8- 1/8 x 10-1/4 inches. Apparently, SP INCREASED their trim size sometime in the 1980s, to reposition themselves from a digest into something that looks more luxe. But print costs are a huge expense, so I see this as inevitable at some point soon down the road.
Ofc they will say it will be for the convenience of you the reader. And who can argue that it isn't easier for a 70 year old sitting on the pot to read a magazine that you can hold with one hand?
(I must credit that line -- a magazine you can hold with one hand -- to the immortal Jimmy Breslin. Though of course he was talking about a different kind of magazine. One with pictures.)
