MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTION DISCOUNTS IN AUSTRALIA

The Australian magazine publishing industry is an extremely rivalrous oligopoly, with publishers competing through the constant introduction of new titles, give-aways, editorial content, paper quality, and the use of color, although price competition in the form of direct cutting of cover prices is rare. Magazine cover prices are well-known interna tionally for their ''stickiness'', but subscription sales frequently o ffer readers a substantial saving over the cover price. This paper inv estigates the influences of several supply and demand factors on subsc ription rates, and concludes that there appear to be several systemati c influences on subscription savings, including issue frequency, cover price, circulation and size of the publisher.