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RE: One of the problems with ezines...

Posted by tonepub@yahoo.com (R) on February 25, 2012 at 21:17:22

In Reply to: RE: One of the problems with ezines... posted by RGA on February 25, 2012 at 20:01:25:

Well, seeing you've all had a good time discussing my magazine and business model, how about we set a few things straight?

My good friend Analog Scott, like most other internet pundits, considers me a "dick" because I don't agree with his somewhat limited world view on high end audio. I think most people that spend any time on forums at all will agree that this is pretty common. You either agree with whatever falls out of someone's mouth, or you are labeled "a hater." It's not that I don't like criticism (actually I don't, but then, who does) but I would like criticism that is more intelligent and points out a way to actually improve what we are doing. We've received a bit of that over the years and it has helped tremendously. Besides, none of you will ever be more critical of TONEAudio than I am, so much as you might like to think you're taking a poke at me, I agonize over this way more than you could ever imagine.

I spend a bit of time, perhaps a little too much over at the Steve Hoffman forum, because along with the RMAF, it's pretty much the place we launched TONEAudio almost seven years ago. And to my discredit, perhaps I've gotten a bit too personal there. But hey we've all made a few mistakes.

But like those four or five guys on every forum (and you all know who they are) Scott is someone that goes out of his way to try and challenge everything I post on that forum because for whatever reason that must make him feel special at the end of the day. If that's truly what gets you through the night Scott, good for you. I've seen plenty of people here be equally rude to John Atkinson and I'm sure at some point it's equally annoying. I don't always agree with John, or Robert Harley, and even though I've taken a poke or two at him, on occasion, I've also praised Stereophile on numerous occasion both in my publishers letter and on our blog and Facebook page.

What Scott really failed to understand in my comment about the products returned, was that the mfrs. in question were very small, off the radar companies that I'm sure could never get a review in Stereophile or TAS and when I sent said products back, they said, "you don't even have to review the product, just run our advertising," which I refused to do, because I felt then and still feel now that accepting advertising from a company that I think makes lousy products is still a backhanded endorsement. Again, that's my policy, it doesn't need to be anyone else's.

The lesson here is really that you can't keep everyone happy all the time.

As for all the accusations about the publisher being the same guy selling the ads is well taken and it has been something that has troubled me for years. But, as TONEAudio grew very organically, we did what we had to do to get from point A to point B and do the best job we can. For a little history lesson, if you take a peek at the humble beginnings of TAS and Stereophile, if memory serves me correctly, for the first TEN years, neither of these guys even managed to publish an issue on time and on a consistent basis until they adopted an advertising based business model. So I think considering that we've gone from a six issue year, to an eight issue year and now a ten issue year is pretty impressive.

There's a good reason for that. We started as advertising professionals and my wife (our art director) and I both did our fair share of award winning photography and design for Fortune 500 companies. Stereophile and TAS at their beginnings were hobbyist magazines that have now evolved into successful business enterprises.

I also wrote "professionally" for about 15 print magazines in the photography space before I was hired by Robert Harley to work at TAS in 2004. I wrote six reviews for TAS and we parted company. Editor Wayne Garcia and I never got along and I knew that I would never get the chance to cover the gear I was interested in because that fell to Robert, Jonathan and HP. No gripe, just fact. I didn't want to review $1000 integrated amps for the rest of my life, so I moved on to start TONEAudio.

Unlike Scott and the other internet grumpies, rather than constantly sniping about what Stereophile or TAS are doing wrong, I started my own publication and did it my way. Stereophile and TAS aren't doing anything wrong, we are all different channels on the cable box. I still subscribe to both magazines and enjoy them both. I bought a lot of gear over the years based on their reviews.

Because TONEAudio was started as a business first, we made the conscious decision NOT to produce a print magazine. Even though we spent our entire lives in print production, as early adopters on the hardware and software side of the fence, we knew print was in decline. A number of my closest friends work at the largest advertising agencies in the world and even back in 2004, they all said the same thing, "how can we get out of print, now?"

As a long time enthusiast of print media, that's not the reason we chose to go PDF. I looked extensively at what Stereophile and TAS were charging for advertising and knew that starting a print publication would require two things I DIDN'T want: An investor (we had 1.5 million worth of venture capital that would have backed TONEAudio as a print publication) and we would have had to charge comparable ad rates to TAS and Stereophile, which meant we would have had to operate from a predatory position. I felt the high end audio industry really could not easily support another print magazine, and did not want to be a competitor to them in that way, I wanted to be an addition to the industry. I didn't want advertisers to choose between TAS, Stereophile, or us, I wanted to be another audience for them to reach.

I also wanted a bigger percentage of the magazine to be based on music, which is the reason why I have always owned a great hifi system.

We continue to spend a six figure sum (yes, I pay my writers, photographers and editor) on the music section of TONEAudio with no advertising support, because that's the way I wanted to produce the magazine, and judging from the circulation we enjoy and the enthusiastic feedback from our readers, we're on to something. Not having to print and ship 90,000 magazines every month frees up the $$ for other things.

While we started the magazine with a skeleton crew, today we employ three full time people and 20 freelancers. While I don't know what my competitors payroll is, I'd be willing to bet if we got together at the end of the day and compared 1099 forms, our numbers would probably be pretty close.

Which leads us to the last item on Scott's list, the separation of church and state. I have always envied John's sales staff, and the fact that he doesn't really have to deal with that side of the equation. Thankfully, as of Dec 1., 2011, I no longer have that problem. We have hired Christina Yuin, a seasoned industry veteran that helped HP sell ads a number of years ago, and she also worked for Primedia (Stereophile's former owner). That was like having a gigantic tumor removed and I must say that made this year's CES the best ever, because I didn't have to sit in a single meeting that was advertising related. While I'm glad I don't have to work that side of the fence, I hardly doubt it will change our editorial all that much. We will still continue to review gear that we find intriguing and send back the stuff we think isn't up to snuff.

That's my policy and I'm sticking to it.

Interestingly enough, Paul Messenger's publication, HiFi Critic (Which I think is excellent, by the way) does not accept advertising at all. Yet on a number of products that we've both reviewed, we've pretty much drawn the same conclusions on the sound of said pieces of gear, the Conrad Johnson ACT II/series 2 and the Premier 350, a perfect example of this. So, my question to the Scotts of the world, is that if we are so tainted by advertising dollars, how can this be?

As Paul has said on occasion, "hifi is in your blood," and I couldn't agree more. With the ubiquitous nature of the internet and message boards, if any of us in the media consistently wrote the trumped up reviews you all accuse us of, it wouldn't serve the manufacturers that advertise with us and it certainly wouldn't help you the reader and enthusiast.

I'm reminded by the viewing of the 500th episode of the Simpsons, where it says, "please take a minute to go outside, before you get on the internet to tell everyone how much this episode sucked."

So, in closing if you don't like TONEAudio, don't read it. No one is holding a gun to your head. It's just hifi. We aren't causing or curing cancer - the damn thing is free if you want to receive it that way. If you've learned something, found a few new good records to listen to, or even laughed at the cartoon, (and in case you haven't noticed, our cartoonist, Liza Donnelly has been a staffer at The New Yorker for over 20 years and is one of the world's most prominent female cartoonists) then we've done our job. Personally, I tell all of my readers and friends that they should read EVERYTHING before they start to shop for hifi and plunk down their hard earned cash on any of this stuff.

If you don't like me or you don't like our approach, I can live with that too.

But don't tell me what I've spent the last 7 years of my life producing is a piece of crap, because it isn't. For every one of the incredibly mean spirited people like Scott that I've met in the world of cyberspace, I pose two challenges: A - I'd love to see you talk that rudely to me directly to my face and B - I would love for you to submit to me what you do for a living, so that I could make equally snarky and dismissive comments about your work. I'm guessing you'd chicken out.

And if you want to know something about the magazine, the staff, how it's run or what my business model is, call me before you start spouting garbage on the internet. Anyone that knows me, knows that I am very transparent and will pretty much tell you anything you want to know. But that's the first rule of journalism, isn't it? Go to the source.

For anyone that's read all of this, I thank you for letting me vent.
Publisher, TONEAudio Magazine

Edits: 02/25/12

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