Goichberg Defends His "New Plan"

**samsloan**

In a message dated 5/19/2008 4:19:00 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
writes:

Have you read the Goichberg proposal? The "New Plan" advocated by Goichberg is to make Chess Life magazine optional. He has also stated that if there are not enough subscribers to Chess Life, the subscription rate will be raised or the print version will be eliminated and the magazine will be entirely online.

Goichberg proposes that the dues for those who do not want to receive the print version of Chess Life will be $12 less than what he calls the "premium membership" for those who do receive Chess Life. Also, life members will not receive Chess Life any more unless they pay for the premium membership.

Not so simple. You are overlooking the following among other things:

1. Currently when a member pays $41 it costs USCF about $15 for
printing and mailing if Chess Life for that member, so we are left
with $26. If we receive non-premium dues of $29, minus $2 cost for 6
issues of the bulletin, we are left with $27 and are $1 ahead. If the
member chooses Premium for $42 we are also $1 ahead of the current
situation.

2. If a Young Adult member who pays $25 ($23 through affiliates)
switches to non-premium Youth for $22 ($19 through affiliates), USCF
collects an average of about $3.60 less but saves $13 (Chess Life cost
minus bulletin cost), so nets about $9.40 more per member. If the
member chooses Premium Youth for $32 ($29 through affiliates), we are
about $6.40 ahead.

3. If a Youth member who pays $19 ($17 through affiliates) switches
to non-premium Youth, USCF collects an average of about $2.40 more and
saves another $5.50 (difference between 6 issues of Chess Life and 6
issues of the new bulletin), so we are about $7.90 ahead. If the
member chooses Premium Youth, we are about $4.90 ahead.

4. If a Scholastic member who pays $17 ($15 through affiliates)
switches to non-premium Scholastic for $16 ($13 through affiliates),
USCF collects an average of about $1.60 less but saves about $3.50
(Chess Life for Kids $4.50 minus $1 for bulletin 3 times a year), so
we are about $1.90 ahead. If the member chooses Premium Scholastic
($23, $20 through affiliates), we are about $5.40 ahead.

The cost per issue of printing Chess Life does go up with fewer
copies, but the impact of this with 10,000 fewer subscribers would
only be a few thousand dollars per year.

Overall, we estimate the effect of the proposed changes for the 2008-9
fiscal year to be $24,000 more revenue and $62,000 less expense, a net
improvement of $86,000. For the following fiscal year, the effect
should be roughly twice as favorable as the new categories will be in
effect all year.

Even the online version will not be able to survive. Look at what happened to "Inside Chess" and to many other magazines when they went online.

Ending hard copy Chess Life would indeed be a bad idea. It's possible
this will happen in 20 or 30 years if online publications become much
more popular, but we would probably have to lose almost all of our
Chess Life members before such a thing would be considered.

Bill Goichberg

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