You might think that magazine publishers would embrace web sites that sell discounted subscriptions as a means of reaching new readers without the expense of direct mail.
  As a matter of fact, they don't see it that way at all.
  Rather, they complain that many such sites, by selling unauthorized subscriptions at ridiculously low rates, undermine the publishers’ own pricing structures and diminish the value of magazines in the eyes of consumers.
   Unfortunately for publishers, a new web site has now made it easier than ever to find such bargains.
   MagazinePriceSearch.com, which launched last month, aggregates the cheapest subscription offers from 15 different merchants, providing links to their sites in exchange for a commission on each sale.
   The site's founder, Michael Coley, says he hit on the idea while shopping around for a subscription to Parents magazine and seeing how much variation there was between offers.
   Coley says the site features, at last count, subscriptions to more than 600 titles costing less than $5 dollars.
   A one-year subscription to Architectural Digest, which sells on the newsstand for $5.95 per copy, was on offer Friday for $3.89. Yearlong subscriptions to Rolling Stone and ESPN The Magazine were available for $4.69, or 18 cents an issue. A year of Fortune was slightly cheaper, at 17 cents an issue.
   Most preposterously, a year’s worth of The Week, 48 issues, could be had for $4.97, or a little more than 10 cents an issue.
  Alas, like most of the best bargains out there, the offer for The Week is unauthorized. Steven Kotok, the magazine’s business director, says The Week’s cheapest authorized subscription offer is $19.50 for 25 issues, or 78 cents an issue.
   That some merchants sell them for far less represents a real problem, says Kotok.
   "The value of this subscription to us is based on the fact that many people may come in for $19 but about 90 percent of our people are renewing at $50 for 50 weeks," he says. "If they're coming in at five bucks, they’re going to balk at paying 50 bucks."
   "It's an issue from a perception standpoint, from a brand standpoint, to have a consumer thinking they can get a better deal when they get your real offer in the mail," agrees Gene Foca, vice president of consumer marketing for Fortune.
   "We don't want offers out there that conflict with our real offers. It causes confusion in the marketplace."
   Ultimately, of course, every merchant that’s selling actual subscriptions must pay a certain amount to publishers for those subscriptions. In some cases, the discount merchants – who are often acting as sub-agents of authorized subscription agents – are simply willing to forfeit their share of the purchase price. In other cases, the merchants are partnered with email marketing firms who “sponsor” subscriptions in exchange for access to the subscribers’ email addresses.
   BestDealMagazines.com, which offers many of the cheapest subscriptions, is sponsored by the Vintage Superstore, a company that aspires to be the next Amazon.
   The site’s owner, Philip Seldon, says he complies with the wishes of publishers who contact him, often decreasing the “sponsor’s contribution” to a level the publisher is comfortable with.
   The problem, says Fortune’s Foca, is that so many sites like BestDealMagazines.com exist that it's impossible to keep track of them all, much less persuade them to cease and desist.
“Unfortunately, this is a very tough thing to police,” he says.
   It may be getting easier, however. While sites like MagazinePriceSearch.com make it easier for consumers to find illicit subscription offers, they also make it easier for publishers to do so.
   “This is actually kind of handy,” says The Week’s Kotok. “It may be a short-term win for the unauthorized guys but it’s going to be a long-term loss for them.”

July 21, 2003© 2003 Media Life

-Jeff Bercovici is a staff writer for Media Life.

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