Yikes.
Well would the company see ROI. Do people even read the magazines anymore. I personally stopped about 5 years ago for good...and the last time I was in the grocery store those mags were awfully thin. You can get up to the minute advice and coverage online these days.
I read them. But, I'm miffed at FLEX because they're skimming off the content, if you have a subscription. The last three issues I've found that the issues I get by subscription has fewer articles than that, sold in stores. That's with their 2-year subscription for $25 routine.
In the late 2000s and early 2010s, one FLEX was as thick at nearly three of them are today.
The value of magazines to me is that I can always go back and look up many items about certain supplements and training that aren't online, because either the info has been scrubbed of the supplement company/magazine is out of print (i.e. MuscleMag). IronMan magazine today is straight garbage, compared to the old ones.
But with the youtube/social media people, these young folks who are into the "fitness culture" know who they are. They may not know who the bodybuilders are but they know these social media people. Dana Linn Bailey's line was about 3 hours long..no joke. I realize she used to compete but she was one of the exceptions.
The last few expos I went to I didn't know who half the people were but that was because they were all of these social media people I've never heard of. At the Olympia, I really only knew the old school Bodybuilding crowd and some of the newer people. They had the bigger crowds. Poor Ronnie was stuck in a corner of the expo. You could just walk right up to him and talk to him. Jay had a pretty big crowd.
I get it with the young people. But, many tend to be fickle. Again, look at the short supplement shelf life of Fletcher, Piana, Kali Muscle, et. al.
Ronnie is a shell of his former self, due to all his injuries. Sad to say, beat-up Ronnie isn't going to draw today as he did a decade ago.