What is the average delivery time on a new magazine subscription?

When a magazine goes to press (gets sent for printing), there has to be a certain number of copies ordered--enough for all subscribers plus a specified number of newsstand copies and copies for other purposes. After printing it goes to the mailer, which has been supplied with mailing label data for all subscribers. Labels are run and applied to the magazines, and then they go in to the mail.

There is a cutoff date for new subscriptions to get included in the current issue. If you just miss the cutoff date, you have to wait out the entire cycle before you can get included in the next one, and then there is the mail delivery time.

The process is faster than it used to be, no doubt thanks to computerization. In the old days it used to be 6 to 8 weeks or even longer.