Not debating the accuracy of the above information either way, but in most cases the paid "bean counters" can make it all look however the boss wants it to look. Showing the magazine as a loss could just be a smooth way of discontinuing it all together, which I could easily see happening before long.
For the most part I'd agree with Curtis, and feel he is pretty much hitting the nail on the head with his comments in this thread.
Very true...there is plenty of "creative accounting" that goes on, particularly with the membership numbers, which are nothing like people think they are.
But in the case of the magazine...those numbers are not really hidden, the magazine has been at a loss for a long time, and that has been no big secret. They have always maintained that the magazine is REQUIRED to maintain their tax free status, saying that a newsletter of some sort is part of the federal requirements. There has never been any hint whatsoever that AMA has any intention whatsoever of discontinuting Model Aviation at any point...never seen an AMA official do anything but totally dismiss the idea. As a matter of fact, in the last ten years, they started a SECOND money losing magazine, Park Pilot..for the failed Park Pilot program.
My point being...YOU may be talking about getting rid of the magazine...I do NOT think AMA is talking about it. Me, myself? I want to see the magazine continue. But I want to see it full of rich, creamy, intense, luxurious articles about how to build Curtiss Headless Pushers from South African Babingawood and Valintin .001 Diesel powered team racers carved from a single block of carbon fiber by old men living in the Caucasus Mountains.
I have NO need to see another article about how to cut flaps into a RTF foamie RC job, or another "review" of a new Horizon RTF BNF UMX AS3X Micro Carbon Z, which flies perfectly out of the box, with no assembly required, and no input from the pilot required on the sticks...press the GO button and it flies the whole Aresti routine without your help,,,
Let those foam and drone guys do RC groups or whatever...none of them are even looking at the magazine anyway...
Maybe just let the serious modellers HAVE THE MAGAZINE. Can we have just that? Can you throw us that one little scrap of bone? Because the foamie dronies have everything ELSE the AMA has...
Let me be clear...there are many people who bash every single thing the AMA does. There are many people who conversely DEFEND everything AMA does. I am neither. I want to be fair.
But for me, it was very, very painful to watch over the years as a group of misguided people took over an organization I supported to much and was so passionate about and took it in such a terrible direction. Frankly, they turned their back on the people who brought them to the dance, all those people who were members for thirty plus years already. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but it all began with Dave Matthewson.
Yeah, I know, I just lit a fuse, but it needs to be said.