Magazine publishing is a notoriously difficult industry. Publishers of new titles can expect to operate at a loss for the first year,6 and often for many years. Newspapers, particularly rural ones that rely disproportionately on mail for delivery, will also be particularly hard-hit if the proposed price increase for newspaper postage is approved when the Postal Rate Commission meets this November. What is of particular concern to fans of periodicals is that a price increase up to 15 percent isn't necessary. Even Postmaster General William Henderson agrees it is not.
Some background is in order.
If the Post Office adopted these measures, the postal rate increase needed to cover costs for magazine delivery would only have to be 7.5 percent, not 15 percent. For the many periodicals struggling with profitability, and the many seniors on fixed incomes who subscribe to periodicals who may not have the option of reading magazines via the Internet, this is a major price difference. Postmaster General Henderson has indicated that he agrees, in general, with this assessment. In a speech last October to the Magazine Publishers of America, Henderson said that magazine postage rate increases could be kept below ten percent, in part because of identified cost savings. The potential cost savings identified by the task force simply weren't taken into account.