Is Stereophile seeking a new reader demographic?

lets get back to economics--supply and demand. in most industries, if you want to increase sales, you lower the price.

the question is, at what point is the subscription price economically infeasible, unless more ads are included, or some philanthropist purchases stereophile and decides to be generous and take a loss, selling the publication at a price that even non music lovers or audiophiles are willing to pay.

thus the newer demographic, whatever it is would be induced by price.

another approach is to include subjects that are not currently found in the publication.

thus stereophile could be a poor mans time magazine, by including subjects and topics that die hard subscribers would consider out of bounds. i suppose the publisher would have to change the name from stereophile to ?????

heresy ? perhaps

for those who object to political content, what is your objection, given the inclusion of audio content ? why can't the two coexist ?

Audiophile companies are some of the stupidest companies out there. BY audiophile companies, I mean the mags, manufacturers, etc. Their is no marketing outside of the mags, which is preaching to the choir, and the ads in the mags are the stupidest ads I've ever seen. The They're beyond laughable, they're downright horrible. The Upscale Audio ads and the stupid football players with brand names on their uniforms and helmets immeditaely come to mind.

God forbid if any of these companies hired someone who has any formal training in marketing and/or ad writing.

Then there's the comment that Stereophile reviewing lower cost equipment and trying to appeal to a younger market isn't appealing to him. Seriously? Do you think this hobby is going to grow without a larger market? Do you think reviewing more entry level products like NAD and Cambridge is a bad thing?

Then again, even if they solely reviewed entry level gear, no one would notice. Why? Because they have no idea how to market their magazine. Sitting on the bottom shelf of a magazine rack in Barnes & Noble doesn't get any attention. Offering a stupid mp3 batter or whatever the garbage is doesn't get any attention. What gets attention? Advertising.

Why is good home audio dying? Because no one knows it exists.

If I want to read about political events and topics, I will buy Time or Newsweek, not Stereophile. Sure the two can exist in a magazine, but so can porn or some other subject that is just not what most of us signed up for. IMO, the space that is employed by Stereophile writers giving life to their political slant should be about audio.
Not for anything, maybe I am naive, but has anyone ever seen a TV commercial for Mark Levinson, Audio Research, conrad-johnson, etc,etc. Has anyone ever heard them advertise over the radio. Has anyone ever had a pop up on their computer form any audio manufacturer. The medium is there for the audio industry to reach all demographics in the entire world and yet, a few audio magazines are barely breathing trying to carry the weight of the industry in fewer and fewer pages.

is it possible that a more successful business model for stereophile, to expand the topics covered ?

granted, readers will be lost, but perhaps, others will be gained ?

what is sacrosanct about a one-subject magazine ?

Many years ago a collage professor said , to determine where we are going we must first understand where we came from . Rather than trying to reinvent itself with low priced gear , music servers, USB dacs and such , maybe Stereophile should look at the past . The glory days when Larry Archibald and J.G.H. ran the show . That would likely interest new readers more than a bunch of new technologies .