Back when we were about 11 or 12, we made our mother write a cheque for a subscription to Reader’s Digest. We quite liked those real-life medical mysteries … or was it the true-life tales of overcoming obstacles? Either way, we kept the subscription active for a couple years, eventually letting it fizzle out for one reason or another, but probably because we realized we weren’t the mag’s target audience. That is, we weren’t a 65-year-old grandmother of 12.

Turns out, we weren’t the only ones to let our subscription fizzle out.

More than two million readers have abandoned the magazine, which explains why they’ve had to slash their rate base by two million, with advertisers now guaranteed “just” 8 million readers per issue beginning in January. Not only that, but RD has also decided to start selling its back cover, usually reserved for featuring art works, to advertisers.

“We have done extensive research in-house,” says RD publisher said Eva Dillon. “Readers don’t seem to care one way or another. We thought readers would have a strong negative reaction. Once we saw that they didn’t, we said, ‘Hey, what are we waiting for?’”

Good question. Um … how about a readership that’s decaying in numbers and intellect?