Kurrawong_Kid
Well-Known Member
Don't forget the increasing cost of postage for subscription customers. Size and weight may be a factor driving format.
Shocking shrinkage of Yachting Monthly.
- Thread starter jonjo
- Start date
Chris 249
Well-Known Member
I can't recall the sale figures of mags I ran many years ago, but I think we were 10k+ in a much smaller country with a bare-bones operation. I have been pointing to cycling magazines as evidence that you can still make it in print, but the last copy of one of my favourite magazines includes as announcement that it is about to end printed mags.
Personally I feel that the mags these days are less connected and less respectful of the readers. For example, YW is always talking up foilers while ignoring the fact that around the world just about everyone is ignoring them - after about 13 years of foiling Moths, for example, there's only around 30 of them active in major countries like Germany and the USA. In earlier decades when the sport was going and most journos seemed to be boat owners themselves, they seemed to be much more interested in the craft that the average sailor was actually sailing and buying and so we found the magazines more interesting.
prv
Well-Known Member
That's hardly surprising - I don't know what it costs to advertise there, but whatever it is it's not worth it for one tiny smudgy picture and twenty badly-set words, for one month, invisible to any kind of search.
Pete
macd
Well-Known Member
Afraid not, Peter, which almost certainly means they don't subscribe to ABC. This in turn usually means that they're tiny.
Publications pay quite handsomely to be on ABC, partly because advertisers/ad agencies consult their figures in planning their ad strategies (although there are some other means, such as readership surveys, to do the same.). So, loosely speaking, no ABC = little advertising ambition.
One of the obvious benefits of on-line advertising, of course, is that readership figures (and much else) can be self-generating, although I've no idea if, or how, these are audited. (The 'A' in 'ABC' is 'audit', which is rather important in giving the figures credibility.) Plenty of publications not on ABC fib about their circulation, so switched-on advertisers treat the lack of such figures with caution.
Otter
Well-Known Member
When was the last time you picked up a sailing mag and read something that surprised or shocked? Every boat review puffs its wonderfulness; every new device is practically perfect. Every anchorage is delightful, every marina is superb. How about a series on the 10 worst popular anchorages, the five worst new boats, the 20 most pointless gadgets? Nope, everything is yummy in yachting mag land. Except the circulation figures.
mjcoon
Well-Known Member
Saguday
Well-Known Member
The automatic use of spelling checkers is the principal cause of the increase in typos
newtothis
Well-Known Member
In my experience, it is more likely to be Wot, no subeditors. Cost-cutting has seen many of the ancillary trades taken out of even the largest newsrooms as management looked to remove costs they couldn't see any benefit in. The attitude now is that minor mistakes and errors aren't a big problem (usually by people who don't know the correct forms themselves), and if one more person tells me English is a living language, they may not be for much longer. Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've lost till it's gone.
Sadly this is the way of all things media-related. The industry has changed massively over the past 10-20 years and likely won't last long in its current format. A model based on static advertising on dead trees won't work, and subscription-based models only work in exceptional circumstances.
The type of things formerly covered by the yachting press will be subsumed into private blogs, facebook pages, etc. If you're not getting paid by the publisher, why not publish yourself in the hope that you'll be popular enough to get some advertising revenue from Google.
I've been in the media in various forms since late-80s and to be honest, am pretty much just hoping my big commercial publisher can keep pushing the "business intelligence" model long enough to see me through to retirement, but I'd be worried if I were a staffer on YM.
Tranona
Well-Known Member
Perhaps that is because it is a very nature market and the boats tested are now well honed consumer products much the same as cars - so difficult to fault, unlike much of the substandard stuff from the past. Compare with car reviews where most of the popular models also get 4 stars. Not so sure about the gadgets though but there seems to be little appetite for testing much of it in real life.
Not surprising that there are few surprises or shocks as most of the boundaries have been met or exceeded and even the odd loss is hardly news in a world of constant disasters in other fields.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
YM tried that "100 point boat test" idea, but it fizzled out very quickly, perhaps because everything scored 82% +/- 3%. It was an odd system, anyway, which rated a separate chart table equally important to seaworthiness.
In the days when it was a sailing magazine and not a lifestyle one, Sailing Today used to revisit equipment after a year or more of service and review it again in their (then) pleasantly sardonic style.
Malish
Well-Known Member
I suspect the legal department has a finger in this, careful reading of the text usually highlights issues by more subtle means.
macd
Well-Known Member
I'm not sure the car world is the best analogy, Tranona. To most owners, cars are no more interesting than their white goods. Functioning more-or-less as they're supposed to is the main thing asked of both of them, and how many people buy a fridge mag? This has historically been reflected in magazine sales, with all car owners (numbers in the tens of millions) buying scarcely more magazines than motorcycle owners (numbers rarely touching even one million).
Perhaps bikes are the better comparison (but then I'm biased). Like boats, there's something of the freedom thing, however illusory, about them, too. It probably hasn't escaped your attention that quite a lot of contributors on here have motorcycling as another interest.
But bike mags are going down the toilet, too -- although since at least the 70s, many have shown a great deal more imagination and vitality than you see in the boat press.
Your 'difficult to fault' point, has some merit (although there's always a way...) It brings to mind a treasured final par on a test of something two-wheeled and eastern European many years ago, which concluded with: "This bike is so awful, I hope to god no-one actually buys one." There must have been some joy in writing that, and I know there was in reading it.
Perhaps bikes are the better comparison (but then I'm biased). Like boats, there's something of the freedom thing, however illusory, about them, too. It probably hasn't escaped your attention that quite a lot of contributors on here have motorcycling as another interest.
But bike mags are going down the toilet, too -- although since at least the 70s, many have shown a great deal more imagination and vitality than you see in the boat press.
Your 'difficult to fault' point, has some merit (although there's always a way...) It brings to mind a treasured final par on a test of something two-wheeled and eastern European many years ago, which concluded with: "This bike is so awful, I hope to god no-one actually buys one." There must have been some joy in writing that, and I know there was in reading it.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
About a million.
Which? has 680,000 print subscribers, which is about five times as many as Top Gear Magazine has, and 335,000 online subscribers, which is about thirty times as many as TG.
newtothis
Well-Known Member
Fair reviews are exempt from libel claims. Bad reviews are not exempt from pissing off advertisers, so more likely to be management than legal department.
GHA
Well-Known Member
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
One of the highest libel awards ever in England was against Yachting Monthly for a review (of the Walker Wingsail) and even though that was 25 years ago they may still be twitchy about it.
CLB
Well-Known Member
Correction, it was yachting world.
Tranona
Well-Known Member
There is a difference in approach from different testers. Snooks does make more of an attempt to review from the point of view of the target market so most of the boats he writes about have few "faults" although he does seem to find the odd bit of poor design (sww this month for examples). David Harding in PBO finds it hard to get out of his gung ho performance mode so does often seem biased against particular types of boats.
Sybarite
Well-Known Member
Sybarite
Well-Known Member
I find that French magazine boat reviews are generally much better illustrated than in the UK mags. What I like is to try to imagine myself living inside a boat by seeing for myself what it is like rather than having it described to me. Of course comments would add to the illustrations.
In addition boat reviews often include a review of the places visited and so the review reads a bit like a blog.