Adventist Journal Backs Out of Deal Made with Readers in 1972
By AT News Team, June 2, 2015: The flagship periodical published by the Seventh-day Adventist denomination has informed readers who purchased a lifetime subscription in 1972 that it will no longer honor the deal. The Adventist Review (AR) Gold Seal Program offered subscribers who made a one-time payment of $350 the promise of receiving the magazine the rest of their lives at no additional cost.
Those who are still living received a letter in May informing them that AR can no longer afford to honor the promise that was made to them 43 years ago. The letter said that the “healthy and vibrant publishing house we knew back then is now out of business.” The Review and Herald Publishing Association was closed down last year essentially bankrupt.
“Thankfully,” the letter continued, “Adventist Review is not going away … You can still receive your favorite magazine.” But the promised life-time subscription can’t continue. Instead, AR “would like to return to you the $350 deposit you made back then, minus $19.95, a “special promotional subscription price … to let you to continue enjoying it for one more year.”
The letter also made a fund raising appeal. “Having benefited from the magazine for all these years, you may want to give back a little, so that others may benefit just as you did, at least for one year. If so, we will gladly put [the $350] to work on your behalf for our New Believers Program, which allows us to make a subscription available for one year to any recently baptized individual, absolutely free of charge … As a way of saying ‘thank you’ for partnering with us on this program, we would then continue to send you the magazine, free of charge, for one more year.”
The response card enclosed with the letter stated that should the Gold Seal Program participant not return the card by June 30, it would be assumed that they would like to put their money into “the New Believers Program and to keep the magazine coming to your mail box for one more year!” They would receive a “donation receipt for $350,” the card said. If a Gold Seal Program participant decided “to pass up this offer and elect to receive the full $350 instead” their subscription will be canceled.
The equivalent of $350 in 1972 would be about $2,000 in 2015 dollars, a source told Adventist Today. The original concept of the Gold Seal Program was that the $350 would be deposited in an interest-bearing account and out of the interest, the cost for the subscription would paid “year in and year out, as long as the subscriber lived.” There are 100 individuals in the program still living.
“These are all senior citizens,” another source told Adventist Today. “They are long-time, loyal members of the denomination. A number were denominational employees. They are the kind of people who have read the Review every week for as long as they can remember.”
Pretty sad breach of trust and fiduciary justice. $350 in 1972 is today worth $1,999.61 http://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=350&year=1972
On the other hand, having mailed 2,236 issues for $1,999 … equivalent … the publisher actually should have broken even based on marginal printing and non-profit periodical mailing costs, indeed should have made a small profit … still … and a much larger one now with only a monthly rather than weekly publication schedule going forward.
It is devious of the letter to describe the bankruptcy of the Review and Herald as a problem for the Adventist Review. The magazine is independent of the failed publishing house, and certainly is not bankrupt. The subscribers bought their lifetime subscription from the magazine, not the publishing house. And as long as the magazine continues to publish, it is obligated, it would seem, to continue the subscription.
Now, it is possible that these subscriptions have been continuing to long passed aunts, uncles, parents or even grandparents. Probably a majority of the subscriptions have had their subscribers die out from under them over the past 42 years, with no way for the magazine to automatically adjust the subscriber records.
OK … I get that … and it would be the honest thing to do to simply send a letter asking that the subscriber confirm their desire to continue receiving the Adventist Review, and offer in the same letter personal subscriptions for the survivors at the current rate. That would weed out a pretty big number, I’d say, and convert a good number to paid subscriptions, adding real cash to the till.
But this cut ’em off because the Review and Herald bankrupted is a moral misuse of such a crisis that, ironically, will add zero income to the magazine, when the fully moral approach would have reduced the print run and increased paid subscription counts at the current rate.
It doesn’t always pay in cash to take the moral path, though in this case it seems that the fear of loss blinded the publisher to the real prospects of putting real cash into the till to pay for running the press just a little long each month and at a profit.
43 years ago, my Grandfather, a former GC VP, gave my wife and I one of these Gold Seal programs for a wedding present for a “gift that keeps on giving” so we would know the official SDA news for the rest of our lives. Now I will receive the principal back and redeploy into support for “independent SDA journalism” as they get ready to report on what may be one of the most important GC sessions in several generations.
I also had given to me a “perpetual subscription” to National Geographic…doubt they will bail out on me during my lifetime!
If they do it I’m sure the reason they cite will be man-caused global warming.
William Noel said:
“If [National Geographic backs out on a lifetime subscription] I’m sure the reason they cite will be man-caused global warming.”
Too funny! Nearly spit Postum all over my computer screen. It’s now being reported that the so-called Global Warming hiatus didn’t really happen, but was a mistaken conclusion based on a now-corrected data artifact.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/science/noaa-research-presents-evidence-against-a-global-warming-hiatus.html
If a SdA can breathe the Review keeps track.
At the funeral the wills and trust guy will be there to be the first in line.
To ask an obvious question, is this stealing? It doesn’t matter that AT can’t pay – it shouldn’t have offered the deal then.
Bill: “OK … I get that … and it would be the honest thing to do to simply send a letter asking that the subscriber confirm their desire to continue receiving the Adventist Review, and offer in the same letter personal subscriptions for the survivors at the current rate. That would weed out a pretty big number, I’d say, and convert a good number to paid subscriptions, adding real cash to the till.”
Yes, would that be the honourable, nay legal, thing to do?
Yes, seems both legal and honorable, Steve.
Wasn’t the Adventist Review published by the R&H Publishing Association in 1972, which technically would have made the RHPA the “owner” of magazine? Some time since then, push came to shove and the General Conference became publisher/owner of the magazine–and, more recently, has assumed control of the RHPA, which appears now to be the official publishing arm of the General Conference. Assuming the General Conference somehow stands behind the obligations of its own publishing arm, it seems reasonable that the General Conference would be standing behind the “lifetime subscriptions.” If not, perhaps there will be no guarantees about “eternal life” either.
“perhaps there will be no guarantees about “eternal life” either”
Fortunately my “eternal life” is guaranteed by Jesus Christ, not the GC or the RHPA 8-).
Sorry but the numbers both in the news article and in the comments simply don’t add-up 8-(.
“The equivalent of $350 in 1972 would be about $2,000 in 2015 dollars, a source told Adventist Today.”
The cost of living today vs 1972 has absolutely nothing to do with how to compute the risk and return on an investment made in 1972. The correct way to analyze this kind of transaction is based upon the actuarial life expectancy of the subscribers, vs the expected internal rate of return (IRR) on $350 invested in 1972.
I have no idea whether or how this was estimated in 1972, and I will spare you the details of how to do the calculation. If you want to figure this out you can download the actuarial tables and do the math in as spreadsheet.
If there are only 100 surviving recipients then is it really worth tampering with the $35,000 being “refunded”? And if it costs a few $$ per month to print and mail the Review, then why try to save a few $thousand per year?
Or is this really a gamble that most of these 100 (if this number is correct) are no loner alive or no longer sentient? Apparently at least one is alive and sentient and able to comment on this web site 8-).
As I say – the numbers in the story and the comments on this web page simply do not add-up.
The termination of “lifetime” subscriptions is not an issue to me. I’m more concerned about the long-term economic viability of the magazine, the role it plays in the church and how much money church leaders will pour into it to sustain something that is not economically viable. Personally, I will shed no tears if the Review ceased all publication because I let my subscription lapse back in 1982 and the few articles I’ve seen from it in recent years were nothing to make me want to see more.
When I was a subscriber it was with the realization that it had value as propaganda, a mouth piece for a corporation. What it didn’t say, what didn’t get reported, was the interesting stuff, required word of mouth and rumor mills for support.
“Life Time Subscriptions” are kin to lifetime warranties. Depends on the meaning of life time, whose it is, and enforceability.
Doesn’t one of the commandments state, “Thou shalt not lie”? Were there any exceptions to this statement? Maybe a bible study is in order for the Review editors.
Can someone describe the AT life time subscription plan? Just for seniors now at least 65 years.
I never heard of this.After 40 year and now USA DOLLARS 2000–I cannot understand it
I trust those who believe in the Bible creation account are able to cast aside the non creation stories and related comments in the National Geographic!
Anyone know what company actually prints the Review now?
It shows PP as the printer of record but I’m told reliably a private company actually prints the magazine.
Anyone know how much of its profits the Review had to cough up to maintain Bill and staff at the GC rather than move them to Hagerstown?
You can forgive dishonesty, but you can’t fix stupid.
Was the vote in 1860 to create a Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association? Or was it to create a Seventh-day Adventist publishing association?
Have you ever heard of the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association?
Neither have I.
“A” Seventh-day Adventist publishing association was created in 1861, however. It was the Review and Herald Publishing Association.
The vote in 1860 wasn’t to create a “church” organization. The delegates would have voted down any such motion. It was only reluctantly that they agreed to approve the creation of a publishing association. Part of the reason was that they feared that to even adopt a name for ANY organization would lead to “church” organization and the tendency to hierarchy, creedalism and dogmatism.
It may be that those tendencies were already more prevalent in our denomination in 1959 than I realized. But I thought if I became a voting member, my vote might be instrumental in helping to minimize those tendencies.
Several of my Campion Academy classmates gave up on the organization years ago because they decided it was no longer (or never had been) protestant.
Is it?
Or did it cease to be predominantly protestant at the point that the majority of its members were people who were raised in the Roman Church and changed denominational affiliation without first becoming protestants?
We can discuss all day what happened or why but, when the sun goes down, the question remains: When did the advent movement cease to be the interdenominational movement it started out to be? What steps could have been taken to prevent that? Would it be possible to take those steps in the creation of a publishing association (or an evangelistic association) in the twenty-first century?