Update on Yachting Monthly and PBO

[Daydream believer]

Lots of comments about what the magazine used to be like.
If printed comment is expensive to produce why not include a CD every issue with additional content or with content from the exact back issue say "X" years ago.
Certain bits of readers queries are still relevant & certain items are as of much interest now as they were then.
A new boat test for a 10, 15 or 20 year old boat is a good guide to someone buying a second hand one now.
Articles on cruising or how to trim a sail are the same. You just scan it & put it on a miniature disc.
It would be up to you to decide how far back you want to go . But make it a consistent monthly item not an occasional one
Assuming, of course, that a CD is cheaper to produce

 

[pvb]

Lots of comments about what the magazine used to be like.
If printed comment is expensive to produce why not include a CD every issue with additional content or with content from the exact back issue say "X" years ago.
Certain bits of readers queries are still relevant & certain items are as of much interest now as they were then.
A new boat test for a 10, 15 or 20 year old boat is a good guide to someone buying a second hand one now.
Articles on cruising or how to trim a sail are the same. You just scan it & put it on a miniature disc.
It would be up to you to decide how far back you want to go . But make it a consistent monthly item not an occasional one
Assuming, of course, that a CD is cheaper to produce

Are CDs still around?

 

[prv]

Are CDs still around?

Not sure - but neither my home nor my work computers have CD drives in them

Pete

 

[Daydream believer]

Not sure - but neither my home nor my work computers have CD drives in them

Pete

Must admit I do not use my floppy disc drive much these days- but surely some media is still passed around on cd's is it not?
I can understand that work computers networked together may not have them as a cost saving but all my home computers have CD drives
Ipads not included of course

 

[PCUK]

Haven't read all the posts so maybe the fact that the new Editor of PBO can't be bothered to answer Emails from long term contributors who want to know if their work is still wanted has already been raised. Certainly doesn't bode well if that's his attitude. Professional it's not!

 

[prv]

surely some media is still passed around on cd's is it not?
I can understand that work computers networked together may not have them as a cost saving but all my home computers have CD drives

I'm sure some people are still using CDs. I'm just not among them, nor, I suspect are the majority of people nowadays. Most new PCs sold for general-purpose use (ie not gaming rigs etc) are laptops, and most of those (85% of what PC World are selling today) don't have CD drives. And note that just having a drive doesn't mean that the owner actually uses it.

"Work computers networked together" - it's not just work computers that are networked, it's nearly all of them, via this thing we call the Internet. When my parents wanted to share some photos with me the other day, they put them on Dropbox and emailed me the link. It takes me just over a minute to download 650Mb, equivalent to a CD full to capacity.

When I do occasionally need to move files to a computer that's not networked (happens at work due to the particular nature of what we do) then I use a USB stick. They're physically smaller, in capacity terms much bigger, fully reusable, and work with any computer rather than having to find a plug-in DVD drive for most of them. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I could even lay my hands on one of those at work; maybe the IT technician has one tucked away somewhere...

Pete

 

[JumbleDuck]

I can understand that work computers networked together may not have them as a cost saving but all my home computers have CD drives

I think CD drives are lingering on for the same reason that floppy drives lingered on - they're useful for some software installations long after they stop being much use for regular data transfer.

 

[prv]

I think CD drives are lingering on for the same reason that floppy drives lingered on - they're useful for some software installations long after they stop being much use for regular data transfer.

But who goes out to the shops and buys a box of software nowadays? It's all downloaded straight from the network. Even when I had to install Windows 10 from scratch recently, I downloaded the install image from Microsoft and put it on a USB stick. Neither the computer I downloaded it with, nor the one I was installing it onto, had a CD drive, and I wouldn't have used them even if they had.

The original mention of CDs in this thread was as a cost-saving measure versus printing more paper. Mastering, stamping, printing, mounting, and posting CDs is not going to be cheap, and would be nonsensical if the goal is to reduce production costs. If the mags actually went this route (which I doubt) they'd put the extra content online with some kind of access control based on having bought the magazine.

Pete

 

[Daydream believer]

But who goes out to the shops and buys a box of software nowadays? It's all downloaded straight from the network. Even when I had to install Windows 10 from scratch recently, I downloaded the install image from Microsoft and put it on a USB stick. Neither the computer I downloaded it with, nor the one I was installing it onto, had a CD drive, and I wouldn't have used them even if they had.

The original mention of CDs in this thread was as a cost-saving measure versus printing more paper. Mastering, stamping, printing, mounting, and posting CDs is not going to be cheap, and would be nonsensical if the goal is to reduce production costs. If the mags actually went this route (which I doubt) they'd put the extra content online with some kind of access control based on having bought the magazine.

Pete

Ok stupid idea !! sorry but it was only a suggestion for the editor to add content cheaply & old copies of the mag are of interest. However, i do not like getting them off the net but prefer having them from a disc or USB stick. I bought a years issue of Model engineer & had to view it via "Pocket Mag". It was a hopeless way to get to read the magazine as i had to keep going online. I never managed to conquer getting each copy of the magazine downloaded onto my Ipad or computer ( i had wanted to do that to read whilst off sailing) & was so fed up that I did not even bother to open the last 3 months worth of fortnightly issues -- £ 54-00 wasted. It was nothing like reading a book. if that is how PBO etc end up going I would never buy them. Not that i bother now anyway as there are few new items of interest these days anyway.
I am not interested in charter, holiday cruisies abroad in the med etc, boat tests as I will not be buying another & I am not in the market for new equipment as my boat has everthing I am likely to need . I certainly do not want some new fangled chart plotter. I just want an autopilot that works & marine displays that do not leak. but we all know that is not possible & I certainly have not seen any magazine dare test any for that sort of thing because thay would loose advertising revenue immediately

 

[JumbleDuck]

But who goes out to the shops and buys a box of software nowadays? It's all downloaded straight from the network. Even when I had to install Windows 10 from scratch recently, I downloaded the install image from Microsoft and put it on a USB stick. Neither the computer I downloaded it with, nor the one I was installing it onto, had a CD drive, and I wouldn't have used them even if they had.

I did say "lingering on" and "some software installations" - I agree with you that the need has almost gone.

The original mention of CDs in this thread was as a cost-saving measure versus printing more paper. Mastering, stamping, printing, mounting, and posting CDs is not going to be cheap, and would be nonsensical if the goal is to reduce production costs. If the mags actually went this route (which I doubt) they'd put the extra content online with some kind of access control based on having bought the magazine.

+737(MB)

 

[prv]

Ok stupid idea !! sorry but it was only a suggestion for the editor to add content cheaply & old copies of the mag are of interest. However, i do not like getting them off the net but prefer having them from a disc or USB stick. I bought a years issue of Model engineer & had to view it via "Pocket Mag". It was a hopeless way to get to read the magazine as i had to keep going online.

I don't like those "simulated magazine" interfaces either - but the odds are they'd do the same thing on a CD anyway. How it reaches your computer (on a disk or down a network cable) is unrelated to the file format used. In either case the right answer is a PDF which you can save and open as you wish, and the sadly-all-too-common wrong answer is an integrated shoddy custom application with animated page turning and the like, chosen either out of a misguided sense that magazine content is "special" and needs special display, or because it might make it a little harder to copy.

Pete

 

[AntarcticPilot]

But who goes out to the shops and buys a box of software nowadays? It's all downloaded straight from the network. Even when I had to install Windows 10 from scratch recently, I downloaded the install image from Microsoft and put it on a USB stick. Neither the computer I downloaded it with, nor the one I was installing it onto, had a CD drive, and I wouldn't have used them even if they had.

The original mention of CDs in this thread was as a cost-saving measure versus printing more paper. Mastering, stamping, printing, mounting, and posting CDs is not going to be cheap, and would be nonsensical if the goal is to reduce production costs. If the mags actually went this route (which I doubt) they'd put the extra content online with some kind of access control based on having bought the magazine.

Pete

Some years ago, I helped produce a product on CD (at the time, it was the only viable means of giving access to the volume of data involved). Even in the early 1990s, producing a CD cost about £1 a copy for a few hundred copies (not including the cost of originating the data). The price will have dropped since then, but less than you'd think because the CD format was invented for music, and of course (once the CD premium had disappeared), had to cost about the same as a vinyl record did! However, the real point is that it is actually comparable in cost to producing a print publication; again from involvement in printing short-run booklets (and maps), the printing costs of producing something like a magazine work out in the region of 50p-£1 per copy. Distribution, journalism and editorial costs will be a far greater proportion of the cost.

There is a difficulty with electronic editions, and that is that the print copy is zero rated for VAT, but an online copy is standard rated. Yes, it's stupid, but that's the situation.

 

[prv]

the real point is that it is actually comparable in cost to producing a print publication

Sure, so as an idea to reduce the cost of the print publication by printing fewer pages (which I expect won't reduce the price pro-rata because a lot of the costs are fixed) and putting them on a CD glued to the cover instead, it's a non-starter. You've basically doubled the production costs (print plus CD), added a bit to collate and glue them together (and does the result cost more to post?), and subtracted a bit for the dozen (say) fewer pages.

Pete

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Sure, so as an idea to reduce the cost of the print publication by printing fewer pages (which I expect won't reduce the price pro-rata because a lot of the costs are fixed) and putting them on a CD glued to the cover instead, it's a non-starter. You've basically doubled the production costs (print plus CD), added a bit to collate and glue them together (and does the result cost more to post?), and subtracted a bit for the dozen (say) fewer pages.

Pete

You're probably right in suspecting that the cost of attaching a CD to the magazine cover is significant. Oddly, such things tend to be hand work, and so expensive. Many years ago we produced a very nice little pocket map of Antarctica using something called a flower-fold - you opened the card and the map folded out of it. A nice little gimmick, that was good for a product that was essentially a PR exercise (most copies were given away; it was a useful product for young people going South to give to their parents or SOs), and we got the flower-fold done as a promotional deal from the printers. A year or two later we wanted to reprint the same map with a few updates, and enquired about the cost of the flower-fold. It turned out to nearly double the cost per copy, making it uneconomic for something that was never going to do more than cover minimal production costs. The reason for the high cost wasn't the fold itself - that was automated - but gluing the map into the outer card cover, which couldn't be automated.

 

[Fantasie 19]

I would say that discussion about delivering content is only any use if they have content to deliver... and from the state of the magazine that arrived yesterday they seem to be having trouble filling the paper version never mind additional content online...

Having said that I follow their Facebook page, and they have occasional interesting articles there which I do read...

 

[JumbleDuck]

The reason for the high cost wasn't the fold itself - that was automated - but gluing the map into the outer card cover, which couldn't be automated.

I get printing done regularly, and costs can vary widely from printer to printer depending on what equipment they have and therefore what they have to do by hand or send out. For example, the printer I use at the moment doesn't have die-cutting machinery, so holes and cut-back pages are horribly expensive. In a previous existence I saved lots of money by shifting to a printer who had envelope-stuffing machinery capable of handling inserts, which had been done by hand up till then.

But back to CDs ... yes I agree, too expensive. But how else can you restrict bonus content to people who have actually bought the magazines. An individual access code for a website, maybe?

 

[JumbleDuck]

I would say that discussion about delivering content is only any use if they have content to deliver... and from the state of the magazine that arrived yesterday they seem to be having trouble filling the paper version never mind additional content online...

In one of the Old Harry stories, Des Sleightholme referred to the disappointment of a man seeing his mail-order bargain dufflecoat arrive through the letterbox. Perhaps the YM team are aiming to save money by producing magazines which can be sent out as standard size letters ...

 

[prv]

how else can you restrict bonus content to people who have actually bought the magazines. An individual access code for a website, maybe?

That's the obvious one; I didn't put it that specifically in post #228 because I didn't want to deal with the possibility of people picking up a copy in WHSmiths, noting the access code, then putting the paper copy back on the shelf. The publishers would have to decide how secure they really need to make things - probably this isn't a big enough problem to justify any serious precautions.

Pete

 

[Kelpie]

That's the obvious one; I didn't put it that specifically in post #228 because I didn't want to deal with the possibility of people picking up a copy in WHSmiths, noting the access code, then putting the paper copy back on the shelf. The publishers would have to decide how secure they really need to make things - probably this isn't a big enough problem to justify any serious precautions.

Pete

25 years ago the games that I played on my Amiga (remember those?) often had some sort of piracy protection to prevent you simply copying the disk amd giving it to a friend. A common method was to be asked to quote a word, letter, or phrase from the hardcopy manual. There were clearly only a finite number of questions that had been stored as you would get asked for the same page every so often, but nobody ever bothered to cycle through them all and write them down.

This could still work today: buy a hard copy of PBO, and get access to additional online material. Every time you want to log in to view something, you are asked to quote a word from the magazine. Different quote every time.
The only way round this would be if, every time you wanted to log on, you phoned a friend who had the hard copy. Not many people would bother doing that.

Extra online content could be a great bonus: relevant back issues, videos, extra articles.

One question would be the validity period: you could have a restricted range of material, relevant to that magazine, available permanently, or you could have access to the whole back catalogue but only for a month or so.

 

[solent clown]

My two penne th is more gear reviews, cut new boat reviews down and concentrate on second hand boats, practical tips, cruising experiences.
I would enjoy the amalgamation of ym and practical boat owner but also wary of (as my previous post) the 'new special price' which always seems to follow.
I've been a subscriber to both Ym and Pbo for donkeys years ending my Ym subs last year and contemplating to end Pbo when my subscription ends. This dicision is based on content which has reduced over the years.
I hope sincerely that the magazines continue but I feel possibly their days are numbered.
I empathise with the editorial staff as sailing is primarily an old peoples pastime who will all soon be in their box to be replaced by who? The young people now are worrying about maintaining a home with both partners working to sustain that home They don't have funds to 'waste' on boating!

I really hope you are wrong about the demographic - and judging by the scrum some days at the slipways in southampton where young types playfully beat us to the slip, them make room - you are. There is a young generation coming up. We see a lot of students on the water from Southampton Uni, and lots of teenagers in motor boats and dinghys too. Maybe a bit of magazine marketing towards these people - Uni, colleges etc wouldnt go amiss. these techy youths are switching on to paper tactile in the hand again, and if there is additional free easter egg content available omline they will go for that too