Subscriptions are a money looser for most magazines. The end game with subscriptions (historically) has been to support ad rates that are calculated on a Cost P

Subscriptions are a money looser for most magazines. The end game with subscriptions (historically) has been to support ad rates that are calculated on a Cost Per Thousand readers basis. Ads are where they've made the bulk of their profit/revenue. A better place to look for a comparison is the cost structure of selling magazines on the newsstand. In that situation, it's a 33/33/33 split between the publisher, a distributer middle-man, and the retailer selling the magazine. In either situation, however, retaining 70% of the revenue is a HUGE advantage over the old way of doing it for ad-driven properties.