By WILLIAM Anderson
COUNTING EARS
MAE WEST, that well-upholstered and much-quoted paragon of applied pragmatism, was once asked by an interviewer why she had the four walls and the ceiling of her boudoir covered in mirrors. "Because," dimpled Mae, "I like to see how I'm doin'." Don't we all. It must not be thought, however, that it is mere egotism that draws us to reflect upon our reflections; what we are really up to is reassuring ourselves that we are doin' the very best we can for our audiences, whatever their number. Feedback of the positive kind-whether it be from mirror, applause, or good reviews-nourishes the performer and inspires greater effort.
And feedback of the negative kind-from (again) mirror, catcalls, or bad reviews stimulates the talented to try harder while encouraging the inept to retire.
A magazine, too, is a kind of performer, and since its "act" changes with every appearance, feedback from its audience may be even more important than it is to singers, jugglers, and politicians. This feedback comes in a number of forms, the most significant undoubtedly being the applause of sales; in the case of STEREO REVIEW (I thought you'd never ask) that means a very positive increase in monthly circulation over the past decade of 180-odd percent (from 150,000 to 425,000), traceable in part, surely, to the impressive growth of the audio industry during the same period, but indicating also that we have tracked that growth rather well. Reader mail is another kind of feedback; we get a noticeable amount of it, most of it gratifyingly opinionated, and all of it welcome (thank you, ladies and gentlemen), even when it is unprintable. The insight it gives us into how we are doing is invaluable.
But, like any normal performer, we continue to lust after more feedback, more information to help us fine-tune the act. The best way to get it is the most direct one: ask the readers. Many among you have taken part in various of our research studies over the years, and a sizable number have just been interviewed for a survey designed to tell us whether you fit the picture we have of you, whether we are indeed addressing the audience we mean to. Briefly, you do and we are. The survey was a particularly complicated one (lots of questions), so we should be poring, like harus pices, over the results for some time. We have, however, already managed to assemble a composite picture of that mythical being called "the average reader," and we recognized him immediately; perhaps you will too.
"Him"? Yes indeed: 89.6 percent of our readers identified themselves as being male, 6 percent as being female (4.4 percent didn't answer, and one doesn't quite know what to make of such sulkiness). Now that's one of the answers that takes a little poring over, of course, since there is no reason, on such slender evidence, to conclude that only 6 percent of those who read us are women-he may be the subscriber of record (and therefore the subject interviewed), but she might be just as avid a reader, just as perfervid a pursuer of the good musical life. The median age of the average reader is 27.6 years--a whopping 53.7 percent of you are between the ages of 18 and 29. The educational level is to me simply astounding, giving me the nerve to throw in that "haruspices" up there without a flicker of hesitation: 28.7 percent of our readers have attended or are attending college, 18.2 percent are college graduates, and 27.7 percent have post-graduate training. All that adds up to 74.6 percent and may not be unrelated to another statistic: average annual income, $16,519.
My particular pleasure in the survey so far, however, comes from some figures bearing more or less directly on reader preference in editorial content: the two most popular regular features are--neck and neck--New Products and Best of the Month.
I take that as a good sign of a nice sense of balance as between means and ends, and am pleased to find that balance holding over strikingly in readers' record cabinets:
Average Reader owns 293.7 discs, 149.3 of them classical, 144.4 popular. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: up catholicity!
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