Sebastiao Salgado

[Mike Farley]

For those who missed it, which I guess is everybody, this week's edition of Amateur Photographer has a six page report of Salgado's talk at this year's Photography Show in Birmingham. At this stage, it is probably the only option available for those who were unable to be there. A lot of printed content is also published on Amateur Photographer's website after a while, so maybe the article will appear there at some point.

Incidentally, the magazine has just been through another shrink in size. The days when it regularly had over 100 pages are long gone. It first went down to 96, then remained at 84 for a long time. Recently it reduced further to 76 and I noticed that the latest issue has just 68 pages. A lot of the decrease is due to the fewer adverts which are carried, but there does appear to be less editorial as well. I have not done an analysis, which I will happily leave to others, to support that assertion. However, I notice that the Readers' Letters section is now one page instead of its previous two. Not a great loss given the mundane quality of most letters which are published.

[davidb]

And in the meantime the price has probably been increasing?

[Mike Farley]

And in the meantime the price has probably been increasing?

It has been £2.99 for quite a while. There is probably not a lot of scope for further increases with a weekly magazine when the monthlies which have more editorial pitch in at around £5. If revenues are not going up, the only remaining option to maintain profitability is to reduce costs. There is, of course, a limit to what can be achieved with that approach and I cannot see the magazine being able to decrease the page count much further.

Time Inc, which owns AP, claims a weekly circulation of 30,380. The link where I found that statistic might just be out of date as it also refers to the magazine celebrating its 130th birthday in 2014. The figure is far higher than the 15,523 in a media information and information card which I found. That is definitely outdated since it refers to the magazine's former offices at the Blue Fin building in Southwark and the previous price of £2-80. The card has some interesting information about the readership, including that fact that they are "loyal". Hmm.

https://www.timeincuk.com/brands/amateur-photographer/

https://www.timeinc.com/wp-content/uplo ... a-pack.pdf

By contrast, Wikipedia claims that circulation was just 13,673 in 2015. The current figure is probably far lower. Someone in the business to whom I spoke earlier this year claimed that sales of the magazine were falling rapidly. Time Inc is instead switching its efforts to writing editorial for other companies, such as photographic chains, which use it to enhance their online presence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_Photographer