What do you want to read in this magazine? This is not a trivial question I’m asking. We really want to know what we could do better. Because while we received just the usual handful of complaints last year, 2,047 readers did not renew their subscriptions. That’s a decline of 15 per cent.
Of those, 1,626 were in seven congregations that did not renew the Every Home Plan.
The reason cited every time is a vote by the session related to the budget.
The further problem is that the former subscribers in those congregations are offered another year at the reduced rate, but they are not taking up the offer. Why?
As a publisher, we’re not alone in asking this question.
Recent years have not been kind to anyone in media in North America and this year has started off miserably.
Near the end of January, Rogers Media, publishers of Maclean’s and Chatelaine, announced cuts of 200 jobs.
Also in January, Montreal’s La Presse newspaper stopped publishing weekday print editions of the newspaper and cut 160 newsroom and circulation jobs.
The Toronto Star, the largest single newspaper in the country by circulation also announced newsroom cuts, including some that were digitally focused, and the closure of its printing plant just outside the city, along with almost 300 jobs.
Around the same time, Postmedia, the largest newspaper group in the country and owners of the National Post announced it was combining several newsrooms, eliminating 90 jobs.
But back to the Record. We are, quite frankly, at a loss as to what to do to retain readers. To keep you as readers and subscribers, not to put too fine a point on it.
We do our best to represent the broad spectrum of Presbyterian perspectives through both regular columns and stories. This month’s cover about the work of Fred Stewart, the executive director of the Renewal Fellowship, is no exception. Fred is also a monthly columnist in the magazine, as was his predecessor, Calvin Brown.
Our own Amy MacLachlan had a column last year aimed at those intrigued by the new monastic movement. And we have everything in between. We strive for gender, age, cultural and geographic balance.
And we work hard at creating a beautiful, easy-to-read magazine.
So what can we do better or differently? Send me an email, please to editor@pccweb.ca/presbyterianrecord.
We’re also going to be conducting a brief online survey of all the clergy and clerks of session across the country to ask them what they think and why they do or do not subscribe.
So talk to your minister or clerk. We genuinely want to know. Because we cannot continue to publish if our readers stop reading. And we very much want to keep this magazine around for many more years.
