1.) A while back I needed some extra cash, so I took several paper routes. The newspaper is the main one for the area I live in, they charge 75 retail. However, it turns out that NONE of this money goes back to the publisher. The money collected from home delivery, machine sales & retail store sales is divided up this way: The Route manager gets a 1/3, the truck driver gets a 1/3 & the point of distribution(paper boy, store, machine filler) gets a 1/3. The publisher takes nothing, they get all their money from the ads.
2.) Some time ago I co-owned a small retail store. We sold a few magazines. We paid for the first month of all the mags we wanted to sell, then nothing more for as long as we were in business. I was a bit confused by this, so asked many questions of the distributor. He said: most mags work this way. The publisher makes their money from the ads & gives them to the distributor, often paying the distributor a small amount per mag "placed." Some stores actually get paid for placement of certain mags, in addition to keeping all the cover price. Subscriptions work the same way, which is why publisher's clearing house can have such a huge sweepstakes prize.
And they don't have any idea of how many people looked at the ad on page 147, more less even went to the manufacturer's website or looked for the product at the grocery store. My understanding is that web ads, while gleaning much more customer info, are far cheaper. It doesn't make sense to me...