The Blame Game

If you ask the competitive magazines why they've lost up to 35 percent of their readership in the past 12 months, you are likely to hear a list of far-from-truthful excuses. At the top of the list, they are likely to tell you that the sport-compact or import-performance industry is really down. In fact, the industry itself is actually continuing to grow and evolve. DSPORT is supporting this growth and its being rewarded with newsstand sales that are up 28 percent over the prior year. Today, DSPORT is experiencing record growth while every single competitive title in the category is experiencing dramatically reduced newsstand sales performance.

The Real Deal

So what is the real cause for the demise of the competitive titles? It's the rising costs of publishing, short-sighted business planning and a refusal for the corporate publishers to look internally for the cause of their inability to compete on the newsstand. Paper prices have been on the rise since DSPORT first hit the newsstands nearly six years ago. Today, we spend 50% more per page than when we printed our first perfect bound issue. DSPORT has continued to invest in the magazine. Today, we work harder than ever before to pay for the rising cost of quality paper. Our competitors have approached this challenge a different way.

Tightening the Tourniquet

Instead of making the extra investment to keep up with the rising cost of paper, the competitive magazines have taken drastic cost-cutting measures. Competitors have switched to lighter, thinner and lower-quality paper. They have also cut the print orders and number of copies distributed on the newsstand to save money. Additionally, they've cut staffs and also reduced or eliminated the budget previously spent to promote the titles in national retail chains. All of these actions are extremely effective, short-term, cost-cutting measures that offset the rising costs of paper. However, they don't come without a price. These actions are equivalent to applying a tourniquet to a major leg wound. The tourniquet saves the life, but it costs the leg. The leg that the competition is losing is its readership and advertiser base.

It's a vicious cycle. When you cut the quality of your product and you cut the distribution, you sell fewer copies. Selling fewer copies means less readership and less newsstand revenue. Fewer sold copies also translate into lower advertiser response. Lower advertiser response means less advertising dollars. Less advertising and newsstand revenue means that magazine page counts decrease and more cost-cutting measures must be taken. Having already lost one leg, our competition is now on the brink of losing the other.

Reward Quality not Mediocrity

Every time an enthusiast picks up a DSPORT instead of a competitive title, they send a message that "quality counts." It's our desire to take quality publishing to a new level. Here's our 12-month plan. We will continue to produce the best-quality magazine on the market. We will continue to expand our newsstand distribution and promotions. These measures will continue to foster the growth of DSPORT's readership. With a higher circulation and more readers, we expect that the savvy advertisers will take advantage and invest more of their advertising budget into our successful title DSPORT, instead of the failing competitive titles. With more advertising revenue, we will continue to increase page counts and up the frequency of DVD editions. The result will be giving even more to our current readership while attracting more and more new readers. Our goal is to become the number one automotive title in newsstand sales. Move over Motor Trend, DSPORT readers are about to show you that import performance is stronger than ever.



Michael Ferrara