A good deal from Current
The Group Subscription Plan
Current’s Group Subscription Plan gives the public broadcasting field a meeting place for radio and TV, big and small stations, producers and development officers, with the broadest reach—both within stations and outside, in the wider public broadcasting community.
Since 1987 this unique plan has maintained a sound economic basis for Current to grow in quality and size as an information resource.
Here’s how the plan works, and how it benefits your organization and public broadcasting as a whole.
How the plan benefits you and the field
You get a better Current than the for-profit publishing marketplace would provide, at the lowest possible cost per reader. For a relatively small, nonprofit field the size of public broadcasting, the economics of trade publishing ordinarily would dictate a less substantial periodical with a smaller reporting staff or a vastly higher price per copy.
A privately published newsletter serving the field, for example, charges $545 to $575 a year for a single-copy subscription. And the publisher routinely threatens to prosecute subscribers who photocopy an article from it.
Current’s nonprofit status and its unique Group Subscription
Plan, instituted in 1987, changes these
economic facts of life. You get timely, comprehensive coverage at a lower
per-copy price.
Your staff—from senior managers to entry level—gets direct access to a professional development resource that keeps them current with their field nationwide. Other trade publications get slowly routed around the office and vanish into in-boxes. Current avoids the routing-slip trap by supplying approximately one copy for every two or three employees.
Why is it important for staffers to read news about the field beyond their station? Current Publishing Committee sought to answer the question in 1987:
We think that organizations and institutions achieve most when their leaders and workers have a sense of context and shared purpose. Employees work better when they can see the enterprise in which they’re involved in its broadest terms, and when they can see themselves contributing to larger goals.
Subscribing stations look on Current as an employee benefit that pays dividends to the institution as well.
The fees you pay are designed to spread the cost equitably. As in the formulas for PBS and NPR dues, the larger organizations pay a larger share of the costs. The field gets maximum service by making Current affordable to smaller stations as well.
By supporting a broad circulation of Current—instead of single copies to a few top executives—you benefit the field in several ways. Mid-level and entry-level staffers become more deeply involved in the profession. They draw tips and inspiration from the successes and mistakes of their counterparts elsewhere. And the broader circulation enables Current to sell advertising—which covers most of the publishing costs. This spared subscribers from increases in subscriptions for more than a decade!
How the plan works
Who participates: CPB-qualified public radio and TV licensees, as well as regional and national public broadcasting organizations. Any other organization also may opt to participate.
How rates are determined: Group subscriptions give you a certain number of copies, based on your staff size. (To figure your price level, we use stations’ number of full-time employees as reported to CPB. Please let us know if your staffing level has changed.) Call for your rate quote.
Contact:
Ron Woods
Business/Circulation Director
Current
6930 Carroll Ave., Suite 350
Takoma Park, MD 20812301-270-7240, ext. 38
Fax: 301-270-7241
E-mail:
Web page revised Sept. 30, 2008
Current: the newspaper about public TV and radio
in the United States
Current LLC, Takoma Park, Md.
