read more

You know why? cause people actually want the unbiased, clean info from consumer reports - so they pay for it!!!

It makes no sense for publications to charge readers on the Web — at least, that’s the conventional wisdom. But conventional wisdom does not carry much weight at Consumer Reports, that detailed guide to buying everything from prescription drugs to pickup trucks.

“It’s not like we’re a stroke of brilliance,” said John Sateja, senior vice president for information products at Consumers Union, the nonprofit group that publishes Consumer Reports. “We had no choice. We have no advertising, so we had to survive on what readers pay.”

The organization does more than just survive. Consumers Union reports that its publications — Consumer Reports and a few much smaller ones — generated $208 million in revenue in the year ended May 31, with an operating margin of about $28 million.

This success subsidizes the organization’s consumer advocacy work, helping to reshape a group that early in this decade was losing $7 million a year. In recent years, Consumers Union has set up shop in dozens of state capitals, has signed up more than half a million activists who send e-mail messages to lawmakers and corporations and has taken on causes like forcing drug companies to disclose the results of clinical trials.