My Automotive News subscription automatically renewed last week and I was taken aback by the price increase. I was charged $449 for what amounts to a base one-year subscription for digital and print editions. This is up from $299 last year and $169 from the year before.
This represents a 50-percent increase from 2024 and more than a doubling from only two years ago. One might plausibly blame that on escalating costs for printing and mailing, but Automotive News continues to give only a $50 discount for the base digital-only subscription.
What’s particularly interesting is that the introductory rate was not increased — it is still $299 per year for the base digital and print edition when paid annually (which they call “Premium”).
Last year we discussed whether an Automotive News subscription was still worth the price — and what are the viable alternatives (go here). I think those questions are even more pressing now, although I don’t have any better answers.
Last week I ended up resubscribing to Automotive News primarily because I was too distracted to engage that question before the auto-renewal mechanism kicked in. At this point I read widely enough that the main value of a subscription is having access to the sales and production data still included in the print edition . . . and finding a steady flow of content to critique. Is that worth $449 per year? Not really. So perhaps next year. . . .
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RE:SOURCES
- Automotive News; 2025. “Subscribe.” Accessed Jan. 21.
The question is where are you goint to find reliable current automotive sales and production data? I really miss having access to that information in Automotive News; now that I am retired, I no longer can view it but am simply not willing to pay the asking price.
Agreed. Would it be helpful if I reported on more of their sales and production data? If so, what kinds of data cuts would be most interesting to you?
I would like that in general, but I’m most interested in recent monthly and calendar year sales data by model (right now, Dec. 2024 and calendar 2024). This is the most straightforward way to determine the popularity of the various makes and models on the market today.
I think there’d be a copyright issue though in reposting it (plus of course direct access is blocked by a paywall).
I have long been perplexed as to why some automotive websites repost copyrighted content from major publications without apparently getting permission. If they don’t care about journalistic ethics (this is blatantly stealing someone else’s work), how about the cost of having to potentially defend themselves against much deeper-pocketed corporations?
So, no, that’s not what I have in mind. It is well within the confines of “fair use” to report on the content of other publications — which would include providing our own analysis. Here is an example of how we have discussed road tests from car-buff magazines. And here is our take on west coast sales figures.