Now factor in the role of the traditional, major distributors – single businesses that represent multiple manufacturers in key markets and suddenly you’ve got an environment ripe for the development of major power blocs. At the same time, as the high-end flourished and prices rose, they quickly outstripped the meagre income of full-time reviewers, leaving those writers prey to the goodwill of manufacturers and distributors prepared to loan them equipment. Likewise, with multiple product lines and multiple dealers, major manufacturers and even more so, distributors, developed an unhealthy market dominance. Faced with a recalcitrant magazine, a major distributor might call on not only his own advertising, but any advertising subsidised by the manufacturers he represented and dealer advertising from those he supplied, in order to support his ‘point of view’. Not so much a case of “too big to fail” as “too big to upset” – at least as far as magazines were concerned. Inexorably, editors and publishers came to realise that one bad review could cost them multiple advertisers, as those companies supplying high profile brands to multiple outlets threatened to wield the big (financial) stick.
“Only restaurant reviewers get fat…”
Likewise, although in a subtly different way, reviewers soon realised which side their bread was buttered. As freelance writers, they may not care who advertises in a given magazine, but they certainly understand the risk of becoming persona non gratawith a major supplier, a situation that could cost them not just future review opportunities (and thus directly impact their income) but also the loss of loan products they have come to rely on.
This market reality persisted for many years, tacitly acknowledged by all involved – including customers and end-users. After all, you didn’t have to be too smart to recognise that certain magazines and certain reviewers could be relied on to big up products from their favoured brands and distributors. Where things took a pretty dramatic turn for the worse was when the global financial crisis hit in 2008. Suddenly, the high-end market, which had been slowly but steadily contracting for years, shrivelled to almost nothing. With minimal reserves on hand to protect their already shrivelling businesses, desperate manufacturers and distributors started throwing their weight around and calling in markers, in an effort to cling on to market share and income.
At the same time, rising print and paper costs along with defaulting advertisers drove the publishing industry into crisis. Quality and ethics went straight out of the window as the advertising imperative came to dominate. Unless you’ve been involved in publishing, the Darwinian brutality of the cost equation probably passes you by. The problem facing audio magazines was simple: every page costs money to buy and money to print, so suddenly, every page needed to generate an income to justify its existence: Think pieces, columns, group discussion, system reviews, music coverage, articles on technique or optimization and interviews sell barely a single ad. Product reviews on the other hand link directly to ad sales for the featured brand. More product reviews equates to more advertising, generating a slide towards publishing as many short, individual product reviews as possible. Pretty soon, products that cost more than a decent family car were lucky to get much more than a page of coverage – rendering the ‘review’ horribly shallow and all but useless. As the economic pressures bit, the ‘pay-to-play’ mind-set locked in: no ads – no reviews. With costs climbing still higher, magazines were soon facing a reality in which the loss of a single major advertiser could prove fatal.
“Is small beautiful? I guess that depends on your perspective…”
Likewise, at the other end of the scale, minor or emerging manufacturers were facing a similarly ruinous reality in which it was impossible to get reviews without advertising. Look at the high profile titles – the titles that are most influential in high-end audio circles – and a one-year ad contract for full-page ads can easily cost the wrong side of $30K. In return for which the manufacturer might receive as little as a single, short review and guaranteed inclusion in show coverage… And that’s just one title!
