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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

>I don't know what I'm missing and what the overheads are but that seems like it should be able to support a fair number of writers easily?

At the current rate, it could have like 50 full time + part-time writers on staff (let's say 90K * 50 = 4.5M - might seem low for Silicon Valley, but professional journalists and writers would jump with joy for such a gig), plus dozens of office staff (say another 2M), plus fund 24 (2 per issue) year-long big stories with like up to 100K per story (2.5M). That would be like ~10M. They could pay rent, utilities, taxes, and other expenses with the rest of 36M (or even go remote, and save even more).

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It's insane that so many of these massive companies look at successful businesses and go "close it, we make more money in other places" as if net revenue isn't a good thing on its own.

It is because there are all kinds of cost not being factored in here.

You aren't going to keep the subscription base without spending a ton on marketing.

I am sure many other cost that we aren't thinking about since not in the magazine business.

To me, I am a prime example of someone who use to absolutely love magazines who could not be bothered now. There is no price that will get me to subscribe. I just don't want to be sent paper in the mail.

They have an online subscription. It’s part of Apple News+

>You aren't going to keep the subscription base without spending a ton on marketing

If you do quality work, you don't need to spend a ton on marketing. And this is very livable revenue - tons of media outlets thrived on less (inflation adjusted) back in the day.

The main problem is belonging to some conglomerate who doesn't care for such small profits or a business breaking even. They're an insect to them.

A corporation running from a non-profit dedicated to the mission (as opposed to those greedy people), or passionate private owner(s), would have no problem to continue.

I don’t know how to put this but you are just absolutely wrong about the economics of this and beyond that you are confidently wrong even when presented with basic numbers.

Producing what National Geographic magazine does is not cheap and they have historically had much higher revenue. Nevermind that they are still continuing, just without staff writers.

>Producing what National Geographic magazine does is not cheap

Nobody said it is. But what it used to cost to run it in the times of media excess and a much larger subscriber base, is not really reflective of what it can run on and still get good stories today.

Today though photo reporting and writing is much more competitive and cheaper than it has been, even at the top. Glassdoor puts NatGeo salaries at a $65K median.

And freelancers sent on a story are paid like 20K or so for 3 weeks salary plus expenses (for Americans. Regional freelancers can usually be paid even less). That makes 5 such stories per issue at 1.2M (internal editing, processing etc is already covered by regular staff, as is more generic articles that are not in the field assignments).

>even when presented with basic numbers.

Where are those "basic numbers"?

Though I'm agree with you about conglomerate that doesn't care I honestly kek'd at If you do quality work, you don't need to spend a ton on marketing. To find a way to your potential customers is a continuous and never ending task for most businesses.

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