Delphi Mag Advertising: Audited Numbers?

Correspondent from New York

There are two Delphi Magazines, Delphi Informant/The Delphi Magazine (USA) and Delphi Magazine (UK). The Delphi Magazine (USA) used to place inserts in older versions of Visual Studio, now replaced by MSDN Magazine, MSJ (Microsoft System Journal) and the advertising inserts in all boxes of Delphi.

There is also Marco Cantu's Delphi books - the classic Mastering Delphi 7 (with advertising on last pages), Delphi 2010 Handbook with advertising with two full-page advertising from Gnostice and DevExpress. 

There are also older magazines - Can't exactly remember, but it was from the Coriolis Group - Kick Ass Delphi Programming, Delphi Starter Kits with advertising inserts. 

All of these Delphi Magazines - which have gone out of business - suffer from one main issue: Lack of audited circulation numbers. If you want to advertise on them, you were given a bewildering array of numbers, anywhere from 2,000,000*** (approx price $250k) to a month's advertising reaching 175,000*** (approx price $20k for 1/4 page advertisement)

*** these numbers are unaudited

Importance of Audited Circulation Numbers

Your correspondent would like to stress importance of audited circulation numbers. Suppose you are an advertiser and want to reach your intended audience. How do you know your money is well-spent and the publisher says how many of their magazines are they distributing?

If you have seen any Delphi Magazine, they are so flimsy with more advertising than content. It came with so much advertising that you can imagine the massive amount of money these publishers get. If you believe the numbers, the publishers should be reaping handsome profits.

Trouble started around Delphi 8 era time with rumors flying in the air that Delphi Informant Magazine (or Delphi Magazine), the publisher was starting to restrict their website to subscriber only and push heavily on advertising. They eventually stop publishing and replaced the Delphi Magazine with ASP.NET pro, which you can always see their readers choices. TDM (UK) closed business few years ago, after their subscriber base "fallen off a cliff".  They had a USB thumb drive sale for nearly three years (2007-2011 Feb) which may be a ridiculous amount of time to sell outdated Delphi material.

Ethics needed

One of the most trusted names - ComputerWorld regularly publishes their code of ethics on their magazines, stresses for fair and unbiased presentation in all news and articles.

If the Delphi Magazines went and protect the interest of their readers, such as publishing negative reviews and warning about Delphi 8 being unstable (a rare feat for a Delphi magazine), asking why Delphi 2006 is necessary when Delphi 2005 was out last year and people who needed urgent fixes were asked to upgrade instead? Editorial content that focuses on products actually used and not shrill advertising, such as giving glowing articles about how good Kylix is (it is totally different experience from what is advertised vs. what is offered). If you can believe what they publish, you'll probably read the infamous World Weekly News. Then you'll have to suspend your belief for entertainment purposes or suspend belief for sake of enjoyment.

An inconvenient truth?

Maybe the advertising numbers did not add-up, the actual audited circulation numbers is much less, the publishers were making losses, people didn't want to buy a  magazine which gave remarkable reviews, amazing content along with dishonest advertisers who sold shabby component libraries at high prices. Interesting advertisement rates for unaudited circulation numbers. Eventually, both Delphi Magazines announced they stopped publication. The Delphi Magazine (UK) site shuttered, with the USB flash drive completely sold out, The Delphi Magazine (USA) domain now for sale by it's owner.

(Parts of this article contains the code of ethics from ComputerWorld, Disclaimer notice from World Weekly News, unaudited numbers sourced from various Delphi Magazine Media Kits).

Update 1: Some typographical errors were corrected.