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Post by david1 on Oct 26, 2023 5:05:06 GMT
I saw him at his booth this past York and I asked him if the magazine was going to be reduced to 4 times a year. He did say yes starting in 2024. Being a subscriber since the first issue in 1987 which was also 4 times a year but increased in the following years.
With magazines going the way of the doe-doe bird I can see why the reduction of the printed magazine was done. He did mentioned that the magazine will also be online along with lots of other train content. Best to check it out on their web site. They have special going on now for those who want to subscribe and find all that pertains to to the changing scape of the magazine.
Dave
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Post by keithb on Oct 26, 2023 9:13:27 GMT
CTT? Being new not sure what magazine that is.
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Post by rockymountaineer on Oct 26, 2023 11:46:45 GMT
CTT? Being new not sure what magazine that is.
As Dave said, it’s been around since 1987. In the glory days of print magazines, a large dealer like Charles Ro Supply would regularly take out 4 full-page ads in CTT. And some issues as many as 8.
Now Ro’s ad is down to barely a single page. And other well-known dealers have reduced their ad content to just a quarter- page ad or even as small as a business card space.
That kind of drop in ad revenue tells all you need to know about print media struggles these days. Tough business for sure. I’m not at all surprised to hear about the drop in the number of issues per year.
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Post by keithb on Oct 26, 2023 11:56:43 GMT
Thank you, I just subscribed a couple of weeks ago, both digital and hard copy. My sub said it was for 6 issues per year.
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Post by Sir James on Oct 26, 2023 14:10:24 GMT
The written word of advertising is fading away. However being a CTT subscriber since day one I was disappointed when they changed to 6 issues a year without giving us credit for the issues we had scribed for. So with some regret I did not renew CTT this time.
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Post by keithb on Oct 26, 2023 14:58:23 GMT
The written word of advertising is fading away. However being a CTT subscriber since day one I was disappointed when they changed to 6 issues a year without giving us credit for the issues we had scribed for. So with some regret I did not renew CTT this time. That is understandable. 
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Post by af3020 on Oct 26, 2023 15:12:26 GMT
That's sad. I too remember issue #1 back in 1987 and how the magazine gradually increased its temporal presence. The same situation seems to be the case over on the Kalmbach Forums. I know the CTT part of the forum (and maybe the others as well) has seen a sharp drop in postings. In addition, either the forum or the places that store pictures for posting, have changed something and it appears most of the pre-2020 posted pictures are no longer available.
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Post by rockymountaineer on Oct 26, 2023 15:55:30 GMT
I'm just thinking out loud here... I understand the math that might be behind the drop to 4 issues per year. But seriously... how does a quarterly publication compete with the instant-gratification era typically found in social media nowadays?
Think about it... people are accustomed to browsing social media (i.e., FB groups, YouTube, forums, etc...) EVERY DAY. And MULTIPLE times per day at that. People are gonna be inclined to forget all about other forms of media that decrease the frequency of contact with their subscribers. Lessening the number of issues cuts the print media company's expenses, but it does NOTHING to address the fact that the way in which people communicate nowadays has changed... and will continue to change.
Relevance is the name of the game. And unless the information published quarterly is of ENORMOUS consequence to subscribers, I see print media falling further and further off people's radar screens. Sadly at a certain point, people are gonna say, "Why bother?".
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Post by BobS2056 on Oct 26, 2023 16:31:21 GMT
I saw him at his booth this past York and I asked him if the magazine was going to be reduced to 4 times a year. He did say yes starting in 2024. Being a subscriber since the first issue in 1987 which was also 4 times a year but increased in the following years. With magazines going the way of the doe-doe bird I can see why the reduction of the printed magazine was done. He did mentioned that the magazine will also be online along with lots of other train content. Best to check it out on their web site. They have special going on now for those who want to subscribe and find all that pertains to to the changing scape of the magazine. Dave |
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Post by BobS2056 on Oct 26, 2023 16:36:22 GMT
I think that would be so cool to talk to him, once while entering Sommerfeld trains in Butler Wisconsin he was walking out as I was going in and after I was in store I then realized who he was, I missed my opportunity to meet and speak to him, dang I was mad at myself
Bob
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Post by Country Joe on Oct 26, 2023 16:42:02 GMT
I let my CTT subscription end with the Nov/Dec issue but I signed up for a trains.com subscription. With is I can read every issue of CTT going back to the first as well as all issues of Model Railroader, Trains, Classic Trains and Garden Railways. In addition to the magazines there is a host of other things such as videos, track plans, articles, how-tos and more. I just couldn't justify adding a magazine subscription.
For what it's worth, Model Railroader is published 12 times a year while CTT is only 6 times a year and apparently will be only 4 per year very soon. I'm thinking that there are a lot more HO and N scalers than O gaugers. That seems to suggest that the O gauge hobby is shrinking while the HO/N scale hobby is growing or at least holding its own. If the O gauge hobby is shrinking it would explain Lionel's strategy of marketing to those with deep pockets who are willing to pay for high prices.
What do you think?
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Post by Traindiesel! on Oct 26, 2023 17:16:16 GMT
It’s hard to say. Unless we speak to every model train enthusiast out there we can’t know what is shrinking and what is growing. HO and N scale have been the most popular scales since the seventies or sooner. Lionel trains have always been expensive. I have some post war passenger cars with $9.95 written on the box that my Grandfather bought in the late fifties/early sixties. A set of those plus matching locomotives was probably more than his weekly paycheck. I don’t know what the paycheck/pricing ratio is but I’m sure it’s similar to the post war era. This is an expensive hobby no matter how you slice it.
I spoke with a friend of mine at York who has been waiting for many months for his layout to appear in CTT. He was told that it could appear next month or the month after that because CTT is so backed up with content. Which begs the question, if they have more content to publish than they can actually publish then why are they cutting back on monthly issues? Could it be because they need ‘X’ amount of advertising per issue to publish anything?
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Post by ptc on Oct 26, 2023 17:45:34 GMT
That's we are a more and more important resource.
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Post by david1 on Oct 26, 2023 18:03:48 GMT
If you get the Magazine you know that sometimes thru the year the number of pages gets lower and lower. In the not too distant future the magazines will go totally
Digital and not just our train magazines but most magazines in print now. As technology grows the old ways of communicating will go away.
To be honest this why I prefer digital magazines. As I'm getting older I can increase the size of the print and I know where they are.
Its happening all around us, I worked for a grocery chain and the old ways of doing things is going away. There are robots in some stores that will do the order and within the next 5-7 years most cashiers will be gone and eventually all will. The self checkout revolution is only starting. Even though some people don't like it you will have to deal with it as time goes on. After 52 years I couldn't take the changes anymore so I retired. Now I play with my trains everyday.
Dave
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Post by harborbelt70 on Oct 26, 2023 23:19:12 GMT
If you get the Magazine you know that sometimes thru the year the number of pages gets lower and lower. In the not too distant future the magazines will go totally Digital and not just our train magazines but most magazines in print now. As technology grows the old ways of communicating will go away. To be honest this why I prefer digital magazines. As I'm getting older I can increase the size of the print and I know where they are. Its happening all around us, I worked for a grocery chain and the old ways of doing things is going away. There are robots in some stores that will do the order and within the next 5-7 years most cashiers will be gone and eventually all will. The self checkout revolution is only starting. Even though some people don't like it you will have to deal with it as time goes on. After 52 years I couldn't take the changes anymore so I retired. Now I play with my trains everyday. Dave
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