Gone aground - getting off PBO&YM

Same subjects

It used to be the same with the IPC motoring titles Autocar and Motor when they were separate entities but under the same management. I suspect the reason is that both editorial staffs move in the same social circles and consequently may meet the same person who says " I went aground the other day, devil of a job to get off, now there's a good subject for an article."
I don't believe they spy on each other's content list or eavesdrop on editorial conferences, but in a limited field of operation it is highly likely that someone will come up with the same idea.

That said, I do find myself flipping through both mags rather too quickly to find something that catches my eye, so come renewal time, I'll have to consider the options. My yachting mag treat now is Yachting World, even though it is racing and big bucks yachts. Dumping YM or PBO for Yachting World would solve the problem!
 
Scotty_Twister said:
PBO YM
Why oh why am I paying for two magazines each month from the same publisher to find there are several pages this month on exactly the same theme by two different writers?

Are you both that short of things to say?
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Yachting Magazines are a bit like wedding magazines: there is only so much you can say, and quite soon they have to start repeating.

Is there ever an issue of YM which doesn't have

* A fresh look at some harbours round ... wait for it, wait for it ... the Solent.

* Some sea school owner touting for business explains berthing under power. Again.

* N*g*l C*ld*r comes up with yet another bizarrely complicated scheme for wiring in a yacht which, if it ever left the marina, would probably sink under the weight of its own fusebox

* Group tests of gadgets which might last ten minutes

And every single member of staff will be photographed, wherever they are, wearing an expensive waterproof jacket with the hood turned up. Even in London. In a lift. (Except N*g*l C*ld*r, who really needs to get a better hairdresser).

Yours in tolerance.
 
Quote

N*g*l C*ld*r comes up with yet another bizarrely complicated scheme for wiring in a yacht which, if it ever left the marina, would probably sink under the weight of its own fusebox

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That has taken the words out of my PC
 
I was recently given some old PBOs from the late 1990s and was struck by the difference to the current magazine.

I hate to say it but I prefer the old ones because they contained more DIY type tips and readers ideas, but then my boat is old and needs a bit of tlc sometimes!

There certainly does seem to be quite a crossover of subjects and boat tests between PBO/YM. Not sure what the Moody Classic was doing in PBO this month at £240k!

That said I do still look forward to my current PBO every month.
 
I gave up all mags in January and so far have only bought one copy of Yachting Life. That was enough to show I had made the right choice. Before I came into boating about 15 years ago I bought the mags to get some grounding and I believe there was a difference between PBO & YM. I reckon that changed when the current incumbent took the helm of PBO after leaving YM. She has tried to recreate YM in my opinion.
 
orbister said:
Is there ever an issue of YM which doesn't have

* A fresh look at some harbours round ... wait for it, wait for it ... the Solent.

* Some sea school owner touting for business explains berthing under power. Again.

* N*g*l C*ld*r comes up with yet another bizarrely complicated scheme for wiring in a yacht which, if it ever left the marina, would probably sink under the weight of its own fusebox

* Group tests of gadgets which might last ten minutes

And every single member of staff will be photographed, wherever they are, wearing an expensive waterproof jacket with the hood turned up. Even in London. In a lift. (Except N*g*l C*ld*r, who really needs to get a better hairdresser).
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thsmiley_zzrofl1.gif
thsmiley_zzrofl1.gif


And so true :D
 
Getting off PBO and YM

How right you are! I stopped buying a regular monthly magazine ages ago for that very reason! PBO and YM have become too like each other for their own good. It was not always so. YM used to be full of articles about the sort of weekend cruises that most of us are restricted to. I've still got a lever arch file of them! PBO used to be the more practically orientated mag. But with the editors and contributors playing musical chairs they have lost their individuality and now scrabble around to appeal to any increasingly narrow (can you say that?) range of boat buyers.

There is an opening there for a magazine for the owner of the smaller boat. There used to be one of course - I think it was called Small Boat, or something similar.

John Booth
 
orbister said:
Yachting Magazines are a bit like wedding magazines: there is only so much you can say
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Well, these forums don't seem to run into that problem too much, do they? Yes, there's lots of hesitation, deviation and repeptition here, as in the mags, but I usually find something on here to amuse, learn from, or distract me, and that doesn't always happen in the mags.

If the mags really are struggling to find something new to say you'd think they'd have done some analysis of where the boat market really is at the moment; what was going on at some of the businesses/organisations who have gone under taking boaters money with them; how likely is it you pay your years mooring fees up front and the yard/marina goes under, and if so where do you stand?, just to take one obvious general line of enquiry. There's been interesting views and informed insights on each of these in various threads recently, but naff all beyond bland platitudes in the yachting comics.

Mind you, there is some creativity among the yachting journalists - YM 'expert' Dick Durham has been making up his own set of collision regs and advising who has "right of way" accordingly. (Appalling that the incorrect advice they gave on such an important matter hasn't been corrected.)

I've learnt much and had lots of pleasure over the years from the mags, but they do seem to have gone downhill. I've only just opened this months YM and found lots of page numbers missing and a cover/contents page headline "the monohulll that doesn't heel", when the article clearly shows, and explicitly says , it does.

Mind you, hardly surprising. You can see where they're coming from by looking at the personnel involved. FOUR people writing the thing, including the editor (plus outside columnists like our Libby, and Saint Tom). There's THREE managers, directors, managing directors/editors, etc. so the poor editor probably spends so much time being managed he doesn't have the time to edit. There's SEVEN in the production/design team, but EIGHTEEN in sales and marketing!
 
bobgoode said:
Quote

N*g*l C*ld*r comes up with yet another bizarrely complicated scheme for wiring in a yacht which, if it ever left the marina, would probably sink under the weight of its own fusebox

unquote


That has taken the words out of my PC
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Oh thanks for that, guess who's just gone and ordered his book...........sheeyut, one born every minute, I suppose:mad:
 
IMO any monthly boating magazine has to start running out of original material after several decades, and long term readers will be frustrated by the recurrence of repeat stories (just like forums).

Maybe market research has identified the big sales numbers being in 'starry eyed' newbies, and is allowing for the natural attrition rate of the frustrated 'repeat article readers'.
 
I don't think it is just this month that sees both magazines doing similar "features". I buy PBO, YM & Sailing Today (mainly because I work away from the UK for 2 -6 weeks at a time and need a fix!) and almost every month I find at least 2 of them have similar features running.

Still, better than some of the American cr-p I have read !!! They are a breed unto themselves aren't they?
Once found a hunting magazine which featured a remote "corn feeding tripod" for deer. This was rigged up with a wireless camera so you could observe the deer feeding from your SUV. It came with a seperate tripod for your rifle, which was also operated from your SUV or pick-up. Just sit in your vehicle, wait until the deer come and feed and BANG. Great sport. Don't even get your boots muddy. God bless the US of A.
 
I must admit that it does seem very odd for sister publications to produce 'competing' articles as this is most likely to result in lower total sales. Yes one title may score over it's siter, but the group as a whole loses whci is just plain stupid.

I for one will now look very closely at the contents of YM before splashing out.
 
It's much cheaper to cruise the shelves and buy an occasional edition, even at exorbitant cover prices, when there's something worth reading. All the ads are already on line. The editorial is so mundane...need I go on?

Wise heads in the publishing world know that mashing tree branches and spraying ink on the residue is fast disappearing as a career. IPC is just managing decline of turnover in one format as on-line takes over - shall we help them accelerate? I made the move some time ago.

PWG
 
PeterGibbs said:
It's much cheaper to cruise the shelves and buy an occasional edition, even at exorbitant cover prices, when there's something worth reading. All the ads are already on line. The editorial is so mundane...need I go on?

Wise heads in the publishing world know that mashing tree branches and spraying ink on the residue is fast disappearing as a career. IPC is just managing decline of turnover in one format as on-line takes over - shall we help them accelerate? I made the move some time ago.

PWG
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I don't think the tree mashiing :cool: will die out completely though - and for IPC the mags themselves are a great opportunity over the next few years for them to develop an online subscription based model. I think that YM & PBO & MBM have some great advantages over both the Murdoch scab rags and any purely online competitors in being able to charge for content. But law of the (business) jungle is that if IPC don't someone else will.

I am sure that "back in the day" when full colour became the norm that folks in the magazine publishing business struggled to see how adding colour "for free" was viable, but in the event they survived - and now no one around printing monthly mags in mainly B & W.

Internet is just another means of printing, with plusses (IMO big plusses) as well as minuses - IMO the market has developed (and will further) sufficiently to attract folk willing to pay for content. As long as it is good content and value for money.......the future market is not folk who can't cope with a simple forum change once every 10 years :rolleyes: -- even if you do not want to leave them behind.
 
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