Is Hot Rod Magazine Next to Go Down?

I got my new issue: 83 pages. I could have had the mailman slide it under the door. No subscription cards either...

I know print magazines are a dying breed, I am going to miss them when they're gone.

Greg

I would guess that advertising revenues for automotive magazines are in free fall. Subscription fees might pay for the postage, but advertising revenues have to pay for the content and printing.

With banks tightening consumer credit card lines of credit, advertisers do not have a steady sales stream of products selling. Many consumers are reluctant to take on new debt and are paying down credit lines and not buying.

A lot of auto magazines are thin these days, the Hemmings publications included. "American Car Collector" stopped publication 2 months ago. I believe that their advertising clients, auction houses, probably just stopped purchasing monthly ad space.

I let my subscription to HR go earlier this year, had seen all the LS swaps I needed. To their credit though the last couple issues did have some Gen III content.

Picked up HOTROD a couple weeks ago,it has mopars on the cover 440 six pack roadrunner,hemi cuda.Great suff looked pretty good to me!

I hope not. I think the current thinness might be more economy/covid related.

Besides, I see an improvement in HR's game of late, as I think they also see the tightening of this format.

Current issue - 3 Mopars on the cover - is entirely articles that they previously had online, except the Mopars, and HR is the 3rd article I've seen on them.
Whether that's Covid-related, vacation-related, or what, I don't know.
As much as HR crows about how important they are - and I can't disagree, really - I would hope they survive.
Seems R&T and C/D are still going strong, but a lot of their ads are non-automotive.
I like print more than online: simple, portable, more tangible. Same with FSMs, gimme the book format.

.....and how many of those pages were paid advertising?

Some of the chick mags are UP TO 70% advertising!

Yes, the content seems to be getting thinner

I think Hot Rod and Motor Trend are the basis of the whole operation.

I think they are trying to figure out the best way to combine print, email, social media, free video and paid video into an package that makes sense and makes money.

Not an easy task, then toss COVID on top of it all.

I will say I have enjoyed most of the "work from home" episodes I have watched on Motor Trend TV.

All the others went down so why wouldn't hot rod? At best they'll replace it with a show called hot rod magazine TV or something and just do video features of the cars they would typically feature. Of all the shows on the motor trend channel they have nothing covering shows and show cars etc.

I pretty much agree with everything that's been posted. I certainly enjoy some issues of Hot Rod more than others, and I would take 83 pages over it going to digital only or disappearing entirely. I guess we will see.

If you ever want to see what a quality car-related magazine used to look like, check out Stock Car Racing from the 1970s. I've have about 20 or so of them that I rediscovered in my basement recently. They were amazing magazines from the columns, to the big race reports, to the local track stuff, to the tech, everything. Some of the letters to the editor are kind of humorous viewed 40+ years in the future. As a preteen/teen at the time, I probably didn't fully appreciate it.

i had subscriptions to several of the titles ten canceled, so the remaining time was all transferred to hot rod.
that subscription now runs out in late 2025...........

... so on your CENTENNIAL birthday !

lets hope for the best and that mags will be still out here in a few years

Carsten

football ,baseball , basketball, car events, so much is dying off.... I do think the strong will survive. At some point , this virus crap will have to take a back seat. nobody can do anything until that happens . so much of our way of life is under attack . times are changing for sure and that means something new can happen , hopefully soon!

I can't get into much of the nitty gritty of it because of stuff I signed. But since Discovery Communications bought us, they don't want anything to do with publishing lets say. We had 26 Magazines 36 months ago, and now it is 3. And many of those magazines were making money, not a lot of money, but money. They just don't want to deal with magazines.

Yeah I would think that someone who is sharp could run a profitable magazine business even these days. There are a lot of older guys who like to read articles in print rather than on line. There are plenty of project cars in the world and there are a lot of vendors who would like to advertise in the magazines. So if you put all of those things together you have a business model. Might not be as profitable as it was in the 70's or 80's, but it could still provide value for a lot of people.

They gave me a digital subscription of Hot Rod in lieu of Car Craft. I have absolutely ZERO interest in a digital subscription., If they sent me hard copies of Hot Rod I probably would have continued my subscription.

i was offered digital subscriptions as well, but i called them up and conned them into combining my balance to hot rod in the print version.

I had subscriptions to Car Craft, Musclecar Review, and Mopar Muscle. I left voice mails at Motor Trend Publishing about wanting refunds. After being ignored, I contacted the California Attorney General. About 2 months later I received checks in the mail for all 3 mags. Imagine that...

I don't read "SnotRod" as I call it, but I do agree that printed magazines are going to be going under soon. "Example" (if you call it that)- Chrysler Power magazine, they still have printed issues but they do not have them in the stores anymore at least where I live. That said I went to Carlisle this past year and they are still alive but they have to be sent through the mail now. I asked the guy at the stand, "is CP still around because I don't see them in the stores anymore". He says "yes and that they are getting away from the selling them in the stores". THAT said I now have a 1 yr membership and will be getting CP magazine in my mailbox. Just my