I've read Stereophile for about 15 years now. Over the years I've come to notice a striking fact about the magazine -- one that I haven't heard others mention.
If one looks at the display advertising for audio shops, the shops overwhelmingly are in very limited parts of the country. Namely, a great deal of the shops lie in the corridor from Washington, D.C. up to Boston. Some others are in some of the big West Coast cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. Then there are a small number of shops located in Florida or Texas. While there may be a few small classified ads representing other parts of the country, these areas take up more than 95 percent of the display advertisements.
The obvious question is: why is the interior U.S. not better represented? Where is the third largest city in the U.S., Chicago!? How about Detroit, number 11? Or Indianapolis, Columbus, Memphis, or Charlotte, all part of the top 20 in terms of population? Indeed, even the coastal city San Diego seems AWOL.
Presumably most of these cities have some sort of stereo shop. However, perhaps it is not one strong enough to afford display advertising in Stereophile. Presumably this is because there are fewer stereophiles living in and around these cities, patronizing these shops.
Of course these assumptions may be wrong and I'm open to hearing other explanations.
But there is a substantial amount of advertising from Northeastern shops, and Washington and Boston are not even top 20 cities (though Washington and maybe Boston would be in a top 20 list of metropolitan areas).
I notice that most of the cities (Texas perhaps excepted) are in socially and politically liberal areas. Is there an association of those who follow this hobby not just with living in certain areas, but also with certain political or social inclinations?
It would be nice if Stereophile's advertising or circulation departments could shed some light on this matter. They might tell us how many subscribers there are in each state. Better than this, they could tell us what portion of the population in each region of the country subscribe to Stereophile.
I for one, would be interested in other subscriber social attributes. For example, do they live in cities, suburbs, exhurbs, towns, rural areas within 100 miles of major cities or rural areas more than 100 miles from major cities? What percent are male? What are their religions?
I've read Stereophile for about 15 years now. Over the years I've come to notice a striking fact about the magazine -- one that I haven't heard others mention.
If one looks at the display advertising for audio shops, the shops overwhelmingly are in very limited parts of the country. Namely, a great deal of the shops lie in the corridor from Washington, D.C. up to Boston. Some others are in some of the big West Coast cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. Then there are a small number of shops located in Florida or Texas. While there may be a few small classified ads representing other parts of the country, these areas take up more than 95 percent of the display advertisements.
The obvious question is: why is the interior U.S. not better represented? Where is the third largest city in the U.S., Chicago!? How about Detroit, number 11? Or Indianapolis, Columbus, Memphis, or Charlotte, all part of the top 20 in terms of population? Indeed, even the coastal city San Diego seems AWOL.
Presumably most of these cities have some sort of stereo shop. However, perhaps it is not one strong enough to afford display advertising in Stereophile. Presumably this is because there are fewer stereophiles living in and around these cities, patronizing these shops.
Of course these assumptions may be wrong and I'm open to hearing other explanations.
But there is a substantial amount of advertising from Northeastern shops, and Washington and Boston are not even top 20 cities (though Washington and maybe Boston would be in a top 20 list of metropolitan areas).
I notice that most of the cities (Texas perhaps excepted) are in socially and politically liberal areas. Is there an association of those who follow this hobby not just with living in certain areas, but also with certain political or social inclinations?
It would be nice if Stereophile's advertising or circulation departments could shed some light on this matter. They might tell us how many subscribers there are in each state. Better than this, they could tell us what portion of the population in each region of the country subscribe to Stereophile.
I for one, would be interested in other subscriber social attributes. For example, do they live in cities, suburbs, exhurbs, towns, rural areas within 100 miles of major cities or rural areas more than 100 miles from major cities? What percent are male? What are their religions?