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| Note that the chart starts at 120k to make the annual change clearer |
The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is the national society for radio amateurs in the USA and is one of the largest if not the largest such organisation in the world. They also produce the QST magazine which is one of the largest amateur radio magazines in the world.
ARRL Membership... On the 14th of November 2025, the ARRL finally released their report for 2024 and they reveal that they had 137,114 members at years end. As can be seen from the chart above, this is a drop of about 8.3%.
One of the biggest reasons for the large drop is probably the increase in membership fees introduced at the start of 2024... see previous post.
This price increase was somewhat controversial in that it meant that members who wanted a hard copy of the QST magazine had to pay extra for the first time.
Members who paid an annual membership saw their subscription fee rise 20% if they got the online version of QST. If they wanted the physical version sent to them by post then the subscription went up by 71%.
I think they were expecting a drop in membership because of the price increase but I'm not sure they expected it to be this big.
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| Note that the chart starts at 17 to make the annual change clearer |
The * is there because the ARRL also has overseas members but it's safe to say that the vast majority of members are US citizens.
ARRL Finances... According to the report, the ARRL reported an income from operations of $458,000 in 2024 versus a deficit spending from operations of $1.4 million in 2023.
They report publication costs going from $2,071,780 in 2023 down to $1,648,324. Likewise, the 'shipping and forwarding' costs reduced from $1,329,088 to $678,273.
This seems to be largely due to members opting for the cheaper membership rate with the digital online version of QST.
Advertising... They also report that In 2024, the total advertising revenue across ARRL platforms dropped by 21% to $1.1 million. They explain this by way of a general contraction within the industry but 21% seems like a huge amount in one year.
In Conclusion... If you read through the report then it's obvious there is a lot of 'cherry picking' with selective stats. At the end of the day, the ARRL membership is down 8.3% for the year.
If we consider that many of the current members are likely to have availed of the cheaper 3-year membership offer in the past then some of those are likely not to renew and there will be a further drop in membership in 2025 and 2026.
One of the big problems that the ARRL had was their 'Life Membership' programme. This was really a case of short term gain in terms of income but a long term pain in terms of costs and liability.
By moving the Life Members to a digital version of QST, the ARRL have eliminated a lot if not all of that long term liability and cost in terms of printing and posting of the magazine. The distribution costs for a digital version of QST is the same regardless of whether there are 50,000 members or 250,000.
That cost saving however was a one off. From here on, they're going to be trying to balance their spending with a reducing membership and reduced income from advertising.
If the ARRL finances start to go the wrong way in the future, there may be no magic rabbit to pull out of the hat to fix it.
Links...
2) There seems to be some governance issues with the ARRL at present and Frank, K4FMH often covers this in his blog... https://k4fmh.com/
You mentioned "cherry picking" in their report. That is no different than your graphs not starting at 0 so as to make the difference look extremely exaggerated. I agree that the decrease in membership is not a good thing and certainly don't agree with them taking away something that was considered part of their membership when purchased. From their losses in 2023 it was apparent they had to do something
ReplyDeleteThe reason the chart doesn't start at zero is to make the year to year changes clearer.
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