Macworld US vs. Macworld UK
James L. Ryan
we Yanks.
The March 2004 issues contain 116 pages for the US version vs. 202 for the UK
version.
The UK version is printed on a higher quality stock, both inside and cover,
and has a slightly larger page, I'd guess around 10 percent larger.
The UK version costs 4.99 pounds to the US version's 7.99. dollars When
converted to dollars that sets the UK version at 9.07 dollars.
A per page cost is then 4.49 cents for the UK version and 6.89 cents for the
US version. Even taking into account that the newstand price in the US for
the UK version was 11.99, that comes to 5.94 cents per page which is still
less per page than the US version.
Both magazines included a CD.
Both magazines are publications of IDG Communications. I'd very much be
interested in how this difference is explained and/or justified.
-- James L. Ryan -- TaliesinSoft
James L. Ryan
monthly circulation of the UK version, in the range of 400,000 vs. 40,000.
Jerry Kindall
Ryan <talies...@mac.com> wrote:
Prices are chosen so as to maximize profit for the seller. The market
conditions in various countries results in differing prices.
Additionally, many of IDG's publications are actually produced by
independent organizations (the US version of Macworld is produced by
Mac Publishing LLC, for instance, while the UK version appears to be
produced by the mothership). Mac Publishing LLC may have some
influence in US newsstand pricing.
--
Jerry Kindall, Seattle, WA <http://www.jerrykindall.com/>
Send only plain text messages under 32K to the Reply-To address.
This mailbox is filtered aggressively to thwart spam and viruses.
Martin Stein
The most important thing is the market. IDG has to compete with MacUser
in the UK. In the U.S. it is a different situation: The other American
Mac Mags are not even close in order to be considered a real competitor
to the U.S. Macworld. If a real competitor shows up the U.S. Macworld
will change too.
M. Stein
Stan The Man
I'll trade you our MacWorld for your gasoline any day!
It's the basic supply-and-demand law of economics: you charge as much
as people are prepared to pay. And the size of any magazine is a fixed
ratio of advertising to editorial pages, so either the US edition has a
different ratio or it carries many fewer pages of advertising. I would
also assume that US wholesalers take a much bigger slice of the pie
than their UK counterparts, having to distribute the magazine over a
much larger area.
Stan
Johan W. Elzenga
It's not just MacWorld, it applies to almost any US magazine. I've
always wondered why the American public is so little quality-conscious
when it comes to printed materials. You are not like that on other
products! Generally, US printed materials are far inferior to what we
are used to in Europe. Read a US magazine, almost any magazine, and you
end up with half the pages on your fingertips and your fingerprints
clearly all over the magazine. In Europe such a magazine would not sell,
in the US it does. And since it does, you can't blame the publisher for
not giving you better value. Why should he? You bought it anyway.
--
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl
Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/
James L. Ryan
Macworld....
A quick count showed that the UK edition had 118 pages of advertising
(including an 8 page summary of an upcoming Macworld conference) out of a
total of 202 pages, leaving 76 pages for editorial content, while the US
edition had 57 pages of ads out of 116 pages, leaving 59 pages for editorial
content. Thus the UK version is almost 38 percent non-advertising to the US
version's 51 percent.
Using the adjusted UK price of 9.07 dollars and US price of 7.99 dollars
that means that the cost per page of non-advertising editorial content comes
to 11.93 cents for the UK version and 13.54 cents for the US version, so
setting aside the higher quality of paper used in the UK version, the US
purchaser is paying nearly 13 percent more per page of non-advertising
content, which isn't too bad.
All that aside, when the UK and US editions are placed side-by-side the US
edition comes off as being "cheesy" in comparison.
Jason Walsh
> Prices are chosen so as to maximize profit for the seller. The market
> conditions in various countries results in differing prices.
>
> Additionally, many of IDG's publications are actually produced by
> independent organizations (the US version of Macworld is produced by
> Mac Publishing LLC, for instance, while the UK version appears to be
> produced by the mothership). Mac Publishing LLC may have some
> influence in US newsstand pricing.
I haven't read MacWorld in about 2 years, but the last time I checked
much of the UK content was repurposed stuff from the US version.
Dennis Publishing's MacUser is much better. (Don't even think about
MacFormat or iCreate).
Jason...
G.T.
>
Macworld sucks anyway, who cares?
Greg
G.T.
>
>
> It's not just MacWorld, it applies to almost any US magazine. I've
> always wondered why the American public is so little quality-conscious
> when it comes to printed materials. You are not like that on other
> products!
That's generally not true. Product quality has dropped precipitously here
in the last 30 years. Thanks in big part to places like Walmart pushing
manufacturers to produce cheaper and cheaper shit which carries over to
their other lines to. If the product is such that it can't support a high
end version you end up with a bunch of cheap shit with little or no choice.
Greg
colin
> Methinks our Brit friends are getting a much better deal with Macworld than
> we Yanks.
>
> converted to dollars that sets the UK version at 9.07 dollars.
I tell you what, if you can get Apple to sell the G5 in the UK for the
same price as in the US, then we'll be happy to pay the same price for
Macworld ;)
Currently the 1.6GHz G5 is $1799 on the US Apple store. On the UK
Apple store it's £1399 ( = $2536.81 at the current rate). Even
allowing for UK VAT, that's $358 more.
I for one would be happy to pay the extra for Macworld to get a
cheaper Mac ;}
Colin
clvrmnky
> Methinks our Brit friends are getting a much better deal with Macworld than
> we Yanks.
>
> The March 2004 issues contain 116 pages for the US version vs. 202 for the UK
> version.
>
My guess is that the UK version is just bigger because they have
220-volt service with those big old plugs of theirs.
Laugh. It's funny.