Practically every commercial magazine is driven by one thing: advertising revenue. From the business point of view, the only thing that matters are the ads. The content is irrelevant. This sounds ridiculous from a reader's point of view, I know, but having published my own magazine for a few years, I'm speaking from experience.
Magazine subscriptions usually don't even cover the printing expense of a glossy, four-color magazine.
The internet is knocking off niche-publications because companies who once had to advertise in them don't have to any more. This has put even more pressure on mags like S&T with regard to equipment reviews: they simply cannot afford to print a negative equipment review no matter how loudly they proclaim objectivity. S&T won't hesitate to print a negative book review, however.
Of course, from an ad revenue perspective, going electronic is a non-starter: that would put them on a level playing field with CloudyNights, AstroMart, and other well-established, successful websites. They would probably lose 80-85% of their remaining subscribers. The subscription revenue wouldn't be the worst part of that, as I have already pointed out. The worst part would be losing the rest of their ad revenue.
Like many others who have commented on this article, I have been consistently disappointed with the amount of content in S&T and Astronomy directed at hobbyists. It seems like both publications went into an AstroPhysics Journal wannabe mode. S&T was even proclaiming how many PhDs they had on their staff.
I'm not sure a business model exists that can keep them in production long-term. Equipment reviews aren't the answer -- too much of that is readily available on websites like this. Production expense will have to be reduced drastically. Concentrating on their core customers, astronomy hobbyists, may help maintain their circulation. This probably means a content mix with a small percentage of cosmology/history articles, a substantial portion of content aimed at observing projects (like Sue French, Charles Woods, etc.) along with monthly almanc type info and their star chart, and a beefed up section on how-to combined with equipment information and reviews. Combining their print offering with a stronger web presence would also be beneficial.
But would it be enough? It's not hard to see, just by looking at CloudyNights, that what MOST hobbyists are interested in is equipment. The amount of traffic on the equipment forums far outweighs what is found on the observing forums. Unless S&T and Astronomy can find a way to compete with the Internet for equipment ad revenue, they will either go out of publication or be transformed into a low-cost, small circulation, newsletter format. Something like Cooks Illustrated, Shop Notes, etc. That is probably their best model, anyway, but not the business their parent comany seems to be in.
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