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<blockquote data-quote="John Roberts" data-source="post: 65665" data-attributes="member: 126">Re: Uli Behringer of The Music Group Q&amp;AI hate to burst your bubble (well not really), but magazines have never been &quot;by the people for the people&quot;. The only exception that I am aware of is Consumer Reports that was subscription funded to insure independence from the manufacturers they were writing about.&nbsp; For profit magazines walk a fine line to make readers think it is all about them. Consumer eyeballs are the &quot;product&quot; that magazines sell (just like websites), but the actual customer for these eyeballs is the manufacturers. There is an implicit quid pro quo (follow the money), and the publisher will generally tread lightly to not offend major advertisers, I don&#039;t recall getting preferential treatment from reviewers or editors, at my old day job. Peavey was typically saddled with &quot;good for the money&quot; reviews that were equivalent to kissing you sister, for market buzz. While being a major advertiser, with thousands of SKUs, pretty much insures you will get some exposure, and horrible negative reviews may get spiked, while I have no first hand experience with that. I do have experience with one well known reviewer who ignored my advice about how to check out a new version of an old classic (he was sure he knew more than me about how to use such things). After the review was printed, he finally got around to checking out what I suggested before returning the unit. The reviewer liked it so much he bought the review unit from us. Now that would have made a strong magazine review, but noooo, it remained unknown to consumers who only saw the luke warm, doesn&#039;t suck review.. JRPS: Now as a micro company I get to experience the other side of the coin, but I ran a small company before going to work at Peavey so I understand the calculus. I have also written a number of articles for different magazines, and even wrote a column for a while in the &#039;80s, so there are multiple moving parts in the relationship. Print media are a declining business, but this has been true for decades.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="John Roberts, post: 65665, member: 126"] Re: Uli Behringer of The Music Group Q&A I hate to burst your bubble (well not really), but magazines have never been "by the people for the people". The only exception that I am aware of is Consumer Reports that was subscription funded to insure independence from the manufacturers they were writing about. For profit magazines walk a fine line to make readers think it is all about them. Consumer eyeballs are the "product" that magazines sell (just like websites), but the actual customer for these eyeballs is the manufacturers. There is an implicit quid pro quo (follow the money), and the publisher will generally tread lightly to not offend major advertisers, I don't recall getting preferential treatment from reviewers or editors, at my old day job. Peavey was typically saddled with "good for the money" reviews that were equivalent to kissing you sister, for market buzz. While being a major advertiser, with thousands of SKUs, pretty much insures you will get some exposure, and horrible negative reviews may get spiked, while I have no first hand experience with that. I do have experience with one well known reviewer who ignored my advice about how to check out a new version of an old classic (he was sure he knew more than me about how to use such things). After the review was printed, he finally got around to checking out what I suggested before returning the unit. The reviewer liked it so much he bought the review unit from us. Now that would have made a strong magazine review, but noooo, it remained unknown to consumers who only saw the luke warm, doesn't suck review.. JR PS: Now as a micro company I get to experience the other side of the coin, but I ran a small company before going to work at Peavey so I understand the calculus. I have also written a number of articles for different magazines, and even wrote a column for a while in the '80s, so there are multiple moving parts in the relationship. Print media are a declining business, but this has been true for decades. [/QUOTE]

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