Sky and Telescope late

Why don't just unsubscribe and explain that the service is crap?

John,

I was not aware that there is a new distribution source (now in France). Anyway, my October issue is over three weeks late ... slowly but surely S&T is on a downward path.

Barberskum wrote:

Why don't just unsubscribe and explain that the service is crap?

Hmmm - yes, I guess as well as being late they wasted a whole A4 colour page on some muppet from Ireland called Frank who took a picture of a rock. I'll definitely be cancelling unless they improve the quality... :dry:

Hi,

A few quick thoughts:

I am subscribing to S&T since I was a teenager (33 years!) and much that I have learned in Astronomy has come from that source.

I think in the Internet World magazines have difficulty adjusting, they have yet to discover the online/print divide.

If you look through a S&T issue, say 20-30 years ago, you will see about 10 or more diverse main articles (some very substantial) and detailed book reviews (more like mini articles). Today there are only about 3 main articles.

Part of the problem is that so much is free (to the consumer) on the Internet (including IFAS doing this forum). This impacts on subscriptions to magazines and financial ability to keep going.

Another problem is more competition from more popular magazines. Notice the prominence in S&T of Imperial Units, there have been some articles recently that don't even have the metric units in brackets, its hard to take a science article seriously and makes it difficult to use as a resource.

John


John

Fair point in some regard John, but I also disagree. If SandT can't rise to the occasion and print more decent articles penned by authors with originality instead of taking pieces from online sources, then they shouldn't be publishing a magazine. It's not about "Ooh, what's up there this month?", it should be more like "Well, lets making looking up this month different from every other month".

Gone are all the freelance submissions from writers sharing experiences and loosing all the technical jargon to keep it interesting. That's what lost it for me for astronomy magazines years ago. The only one I have little faith left in is Astronomy Now. Its articles still feel like thay have a personal touch more times over SandT. But I still don't buy it by far on a regular basis. In fact, I don't buy any, because none of them SATISFY me after I've paid the cover charge.

Ad-driven, untimely, out of date, plethora of uninteresting articles is what I see.

Slightly disgruntled,

Seanie.

has anyone got the october issue yet?. the september one arrived late and so far the october one has yet to turn up. it has gone from one extreme be 2 to 3 weeks early to not appearing at all.