Useful information for those assessing NCRA's business acumen, if any

[Bill Parsons]

Conservatively NCRA has cumulatively lost over $2,000,000 during the last 16 years.

During those 16 years JCR Court Reporter Listing advertisers have cancelled their ads by the dozens because of their great dissatisfaction with with the policy of the NCRA board of directors and NCRA staff in listing the Court Reporter Listings in NO order.

NOTE: The ads are listed by seniority which is equivalent of listing the ads in NO order.

As of the May issue of JCR 94 ads per issue or 7.8 pages of JCR Court Reporter Listing ads have been lost per issue of the magazine. (Approximately a loss of 8 pages of ads per issue)

Explanation: The peak number of 261 domestic ads in 1993 had declined to 167 domestic ads with the May 2009 issue of JCR.

This progression of loss of ads has occured over each of the last 16 years. That's where the cumulative large loss of revenue comes from.

Now of the remaining 167 domestic JCR CRL ads, those ads are priced far, far below their market value.

For example, if a 1/6 page ad were to sell for $200, a 1/12 page ad would sell for $100, 50% of the cost of a 1/6 page ad, but there is always an additional charge on smaller sized ads so that a 1/6 page ad might sell for $220.

As of the May issue of JCR, the 167 domestic JCR Court Reporter Listing ads are sold at far, far below their market value as follows:

A 10-time JCR 1/6 page display ad sells for $360 versus a 1/12 page JCR Court Reporter Listing ad selling for $100 per month.

That's not even adding the additional charge added onto each smaller sized ad as smaller sized ads pay a higher rate for the percentage of the page used.

In a nutshell, the NCRA board of directors and NCRA staff have not run the JCR advertising as a "profit making" proposition but rather have run the JCR Court Reporter Listing ad section as a "non-profit" ad section with ads selling far, far less than their market value.

Each ad is minimally priced at $80 less than the market value of each ad.

Just multiply a loss of $80 per ad for 167 ads, and you get a loss of $13,360 per issue of the magazine, a loss $133,600 per year for ten issues of the magazine .

Then taking into account the net loss of 94 ads per issue since 1993, which ads should be selling for at a minumum of $180 each, that's a loss of $16,920 per issue, a loss of $169,200 per year.

Adding the yearly losses of $133,600 and $169,200 totals a yearly loss of $302,800.

And again I haven't taken into account the 200 ads that the ad section should have increased by over the last 16 years, i.e. instead of 261 ads in 1993 there should be 461 ads in 2009.

In a nutshell, the JCR Magazine JCR Court Reporter Listing ad section has been run with NO standards as a business courtesy to freelance agencies.

I say the magazine should be run as a profit making magazine with all advertisers paying their fair share based on the market value of ads.

I say stop the Big Giveaways by the NCRA board of directors and staff.

I say let the magazine be run as a profit making magazine generating profit by charging the going market rate for JCR Court Reporter Listing ads.

I say let the magazine policies be set according to high business standards and not by the NCRA board and staff saying anything that comes into their minds to defend their policies without regard to the merit or truthfulness of what they are saying.

Can we afford to have policies set based upon untruthful statements put forth by the NCRA board and staff without regard to any business standards?

Can NCRA afford to run a non-profit ad section without any regard to losses of advertisers and without regard to making a decent profit from the ads?

Bill Parsons