
Display advertising
Current has a paid circulation of 5,000 to 6,000 copies and a readership estimated at twice that number, including program buyers, managers, producers, educational specialists, fundraisers and other professionals in public TV and radio around the country, plus a wide variety of independent producers, state and federal policymakers, station trustees and other people interested in noncommercial media.
With a unique group subscription plan for stations, Current reaches not only general managers but also mid-level managers who choose programs and vendors and the rank-and-file staffers who also influence stations' purchase decisions.
If you can't afford much space but want an ongoing presence, consider Current's affordable Directory of Services ads.
Your checklist
for carefree display advertising
If there’s a
good chance your organization will buy four or more ads in the next 12
months,
consider setting up an annual contract for a frequency discount.
Reserve space and color
capability (if you plan color in your ad) before reservation deadline. Fax this
form to us and check to make sure we received it.
Assign a professional
designer who knows print reproduction. We can help in a pinch.
Protect your design — take
heed of our tips for defensive design to work within
the limitations of web offset printing on newsprint.
Submit a printed
proof with your artwork so that our printers will know how the ad should
look.
Make sure we have your
artwork by the art deadline (usually
the Wednesday before publication date). Art delivered on time gets
a better proofing.
Send us your insertion orders in writing before reservation deadlines, generally 10 days before cover date. Download the insertion order form, fill it out and fax it to us.
Or send e-mail to , giving: pub date, size, headline of ad, who should get the bill, purchase order number (if any), phone and e-mail for you and designer, how and when artwork will be delivered and page placement preferences.
When you reserve space, you must also choose black-and-white or color printing.
Not accepted:
Cancelations: If you can’t use reserved ad space, cancel before space reservation deadline. (We recommend both phoning and writing. Please don't rely entirely on fax or e-mail to reach us, especially near deadline.) Current reserves the right to bill for ads canceled after the deadline.
We mail invoices within days after publication, payment due 30 days after bill date. Invoices reflect net rates — agency discounts do not apply. Advertisers with overdue bills will be required to pay up and prepay before we accept further ads.
Color ink charges: Space rates on next page include only black ink. Color inks are available at additional charge, but may not be available on certain pages or at all, depending on press capacity.
Specify that you will need color capability when you reserve space and provide separated artwork.
Process color: $600. Required if you wish to include full-color photos. Colors created by blending four inks: cyan, yellow, magenta and black (CMYK). Printing plates are made with a direct-to-plate digital process.
Single color: $200 for your choice of a single hue that can be reproduced with process color. We no longer offer spot color printing using hand-mixed inks. You still have the economical option of using a single hue (and various percentage tints of that hue), but it will be reproduced with the four-color process. Your designer sets up the ad for four-color printing.
Premium placement pages: Current generally chooses pages for ads, but we will try to give specific premium placements — pages 3 and 5, center spread, inside back page and back page — when advertisers request them. If a page is available, the fee to guarantee placement is $100. Some pages are often taken months ahead. Reserve early and in writing.
Design & composition: $50 per hour. We can assist in a pinch, but we urge you to assign your own professional designer to prepare materials. We also charge per hour for labor if you submit copy with serious technical problems that you can’t fix before deadline.
Preferred format: high-resolution PDF. Must include
all images and fonts, color separations. Flatten (merge
layers) in your design software before creating PDF. Create PDF with “press” setting,
not “ebook” or “print.”
Also accepted: PC or Mac files in native file formats of design software:
Image scans:
Fonts: Type 1 or OpenType preferred. Always include.
Proofs: required with your art!
Defensive design to avoid color gremlins
Newspaper web offset printing is not guaranteed to equal magazine quality for every copy printed.
It can be quite good, but when it’s not, you can save your ad with defensive design.
If you are preparing a color ad, use
only CMYK images. Make sure there are no elements of your ad, incompatible
with CMYK, that were prepared in RGB for use on a web page. Designers do
slip up, creating last-minute worries (at best) and potentially ruining your
ad.
Protect your legibility. Avoid printing small text (12 points or less)
with multicolor builds or in white on backgrounds built with multiple inks.It's safer to print small text in a single ink such as black.
Don’t create black with four inks.
Minimize registration problems. Alignment of colors can slip during a press run. With very dark
type over lighter background, don’t knock out the background. Avoid abutting fine rules to objects
in other colors.
Beware of large areas of a single ink. It risks uneven color for at least part of the pressrun.
Building the background color from multiple inks helps your odds. If you must use a large solid area
of one ink, use an 80% or 90% screen and compensate by choosing darker ink.
Don’t rely on colors you see on screen. PDFs and other RGB computer
files show a different range of hues than CMYK inks can print. Beware: Some
RGB colors cannot be recreated ink CMYK.
Express delivery: Use it to deliver not only your electronic files but also your color proofs. To protect your art, please maintain a duplicate in your office and ship by Federal Express or similar trackable carrier.
Physical delivery media
Sherron Phillips
Advertising/Production Director
Current
6930 Carroll Ave., Suite 350
Takoma Park, MD 20912
E-mail:
Electronic delivery:
| Full page, 10 x 14" Junior page, 7.5 x 10" Horizontal half page, 10 x 7" Vertical half page, 5 x 13.5" |
Little junior, 7.5 x 5" Quarter page, 5 x 6.75" Vertical quarter page, 2.4 x 13.5" Full double truck (two pages), 21.25 x 14" Junior double truck (two juniors), 16 x 10" |
To separate ads from editorial matter, we require a border or background screen for ads smaller than a full page.
Current is printed as a newspaper, so bleeds are not available (except across gutter in double
trucks).
These rates are effective in July 2007. Rates may change next July.
Rates are net per insertion. Agency discounts do not apply.
Take advantage of our frequency discounts: Advertisers can get more exposure for the dollar with Current’s frequency discounts below. You can begin a customized 12-month contract any time during the year. Advertisers are eligible for frequency discounts only after committing to a frequency level in a signed contract. Frequency discounts apply to space charges but not to color or other add-on charges.
| No. of issues | 1-3 |
4-6 | 7-10 | 11-14 | 15-23 | 24-29 | 30+ |
| Discount | Full price | 5% |
8% |
12% |
16% |
20% |
25% |
| Full page | $1395
|
1325.25
|
1283.40 |
1227.60 |
1171.18 |
1116 |
1346.25 |
| Junior page | 896
|
851.20 |
824.32 |
788.48
|
752.64 |
716.80 |
672
|
| Half page | 760 |
722 |
699.20 |
668.80 |
638.40 |
608 |
570 |
| Little junior | 486 |
461.70 |
447.12 |
427.68 |
408.24 |
388.80 |
364.50 |
| Quarter page | 429 |
407.35 |
394.68 |
377.52 |
360.36 |
343.20 |
321.75 |
Web page revised Nov. 14, 2007
Current: the newspaper about public TV and radio
in the United States
Current LLC, Takoma Park, Md.

Download
a PDF
Rate
card including publication
schedule and technical specs
Schedule
only
Insertion
order form
Contact
Sherron Phillips
Advertising/Production Director
Current
6930 Carroll Ave.,
Suite 350
Takoma Park, MD 20912
301-270-7240,
ext. 36
Rates
and frequency discounts for July 2007-June 2008
Publication
dates and deadlines
Materials
accepted for reproduction
Color
and other additional charges
Delivering
art by express, e-mail or FTP
Reserving
or canceling display ad space and color
Paying
for ads