Upheaval in the French yachting magazines

[Koeketiene]

Isn't Christmas great ?

Boo2

I hate it.
Whoever invented it, should have been nailed to a cross.

One wonders if Richard Shead had read the runes, and seen the print market for the UK sailing and motorboat magazines also going down the pan.

In its current proliferate and highly segmented format, it does not really make commercial sense to divide the can of beans so many times. The result is a slew of magazines with decreasing editorial and mainstream content, becoming less and less attractive to purchasers.

I agree - taken over all IPC/Time mags, there is just enough decent content around to make one very decent magazine.
Practical Yacht Owner World Monthly - or something like that...

 

[macd]

I agree - taken over all IPC/Time mags, there is just enough decent content around to make one very decent magazine.

...and just enough readers. The sales figures for all of them (which also bears heavily on precious ad revenue) are very marginal. Still, no-one will have their eye more closely on the ball than the publishers, whatever hobby-horses are trotted out here.

 

[LadyInBed]

The issue, as I see it, is that there is a known list of topics for the mags to write about.
For someone new to sailing they are keen to learn from the mags and read them cover to cover. When the mags revisit a topic these 'newbees' will read it to confirm what they read last time and compare it to the experience that they have picked up, but on the fourth cycle they get fed up with reading the same thing and only buy a mag if, after browsing in a shop, there is an artical that catches their eye.
You see the same on the forums, the same Q's come up time and again, mainly from people new to sailing, and a lot can be tied to seasons.

 

[Daydream believer]

One entirely as rational and a deal less perjorative than "It's Ok they are French so it is of no consequence".

So in other words you did not have any basis for your remark

 

[macd]

So in other words you did not have any basis for your remark

Read the thread, daydreamer. It wasn't my remark that you took issue with.

 

[Daydream believer]

Read the thread, daydreamer. It wasn't my remark that you took issue with.

Apologies I was a bit quick to bite. Still ,not in the least bit worried about a French mag going under.
But I do get the hump when someone knocks the UK, especially without foundation.
I do not buy magazines because they no longer have anything of interest. However, years ago as I was learning there was plenty of interest & i would read the print off the page.
What is worrying that falling sales may not just be the move to social internet. It could be the gradual loss of interest in sailing which one sees all round the UK. Sailing is a very difficult sport to get into & mags do have a role in helping the newby so are necessary for this alone.
I suspect that in France youngsters get a better introduction to sailing via their schools. That creates a wider population with an understanding of the sport. This produces a readership interested in sailing& must make it easier to sell magazines. However, am i interested in the success of French magazines ??--- No not at all, unless it is detrimental to any UK based companies . Perhaps there is an export opening for PBO- Now that would be good

 

[dunedin]

I mentioned this to Richard Shead a few years ago at SIBS.
I have a digital subscription to Cruising World - price is about 50% of the print price.

Richard said it was because Cruising World had a different buisiness model and left it at that.
Maybe a buisiness model IPC/Time should adopt.

Yes sadly YBW / RS view about digital, as came over in a number of threads on this site, was that the customer was always wrong when asking about digital matters - and secondly that the customers were too dim to understand the commercials of the digital world (ignoring the fact that many run successful online business sites themselves).
They need to think about how to monetise their product in the new world - and the same prices for paper and digital ain't the answer

 

[Birdseye]

It's Ok they are French so it is of no consequence

Could actually be that they are written in a minor european language with limited appeal outside France

 

[Resolution]

New around here, are you?

Oi Pipsqueak, respect please. My Join Date predates yours by years and years. Happy New Year anyway.
Peter

 

[Resolution]

The issue, as I see it, is that there is a known list of topics for the mags to write about.

Back to front. Part of the problem is that they mostly stick to the known list of topics. If we lot can keep talking to ourselves year after year and still finding new subject,s or new angles on old subjects, then I don't see why a paper mag couldn't keep coming up with new stuff.

The other part of the problem is that internet media is quicker and interactive. Fora like this one are replacing the magazines.

So why have I just subscribed to Yachting World?????
Peter

 

[JumbleDuck]

In its current proliferate and highly segmented format, it does not really make commercial sense to divide the can of beans so many times. The result is a slew of magazines with decreasing editorial and mainstream content, becoming less and less attractive to purchasers.

As others have said, I really can't see YM and PBO lasting long as separate magazines. The traditional division between cruising (YM) and working on boats (PBO) has practically disappeared and the content is more-or-less identical.

Oi Pipsqueak, respect please. My Join Date predates yours by years and years. Happy New Year anyway.
Peter

I know, I know. It was a stock reply to someone expressing surprise at something quite unremarkable - in this case a bit of xenophobia from a regular of The Lounge. A Happy New Year to you too.

SWMBO had a digital subscription to YM for a while, I think she was running out of cupboard space for the magazines and felt bad about binning them. But after her tablet suffered some sort of glitch we couldn't access them anymore, nor could. I read the same copy on my device. Went back to paper as it was exactly the same price.

There is no way I am buying digital content as locked down and proprietary as Time Inc stuff. If I shell out money for content I want to be sure that I can read it in ten years or twenty years on a device I don't own which will probably be running an OS which doesn't exist. That basically means a pdf. Even Apple saw the light and made iTunes stuff DRM free, eventually.

 

[alan_d]

One entirely as rational and a deal less perjorative than "It's Ok they are French so it is of no consequence".

For the benefit of anyone else planning to use the word, I should point out that pejorative has only one r.

 

[macd]

For the benefit of anyone else planning to use the word, I should point out that pejorative has only one r.

Christmas...and all I got was a bl**dy proof reader
Happy hogmanay.

 

[GHA]

SWMBO had a digital subscription to YM for a while, I think she was running out of cupboard space for the magazines and felt bad about binning them. But after her tablet suffered some sort of glitch we couldn't access them anymore, nor could. I read the same copy on my device. Went back to paper as it was exactly the same price.

Tenner a month for the lot plus so many more.....

https://us.readly.com/

 

[Sybarite]

Apologies I was a bit quick to bite. Still ,not in the least bit worried about a French mag going under.
But I do get the hump when someone knocks the UK, especially without foundation.
I do not buy magazines because they no longer have anything of interest. However, years ago as I was learning there was plenty of interest & i would read the print off the page.

What happens in France is often a precursor to what happens elsewhere in the nautical field.

In terms of content and presentation I would rank V& V and Voiles magazine higher than the UK mags. I will hear you say "But he would say that wouldn't he?" And, in my defense I would add that I am a regular reader of both French and UK mags. Admittedly I now scrutinize the UK mags before buying them as they have priced themselves out of the market over here, being 50% more than what I consider better mags.

Incidentally Elaine Bunting also told me that she was very impressed by V&V and now I can understand a little better YW's move to a perhaps more sustainable up-market.

 

[Seajet]

Apologies I was a bit quick to bite. Still ,not in the least bit worried about a French mag going under.
But I do get the hump when someone knocks the UK, especially without foundation.
I do not buy magazines because they no longer have anything of interest. However, years ago as I was learning there was plenty of interest & i would read the print off the page.
What is worrying that falling sales may not just be the move to social internet. It could be the gradual loss of interest in sailing which one sees all round the UK. Sailing is a very difficult sport to get into & mags do have a role in helping the newby so are necessary for this alone.
I suspect that in France youngsters get a better introduction to sailing via their schools. That creates a wider population with an understanding of the sport. This produces a readership interested in sailing& must make it easier to sell magazines. However, am i interested in the success of French magazines ??--- No not at all, unless it is detrimental to any UK based companies . Perhaps there is an export opening for PBO- Now that would be good

Daydream Believer,

I was basing my statement on the simple fact that no matter how many times we all watch ' Master and Commander ' ( and I'll be among the first to cheer at the ending ) the fact is the French do sailing very well indeed.

Years ago we used to get their Muscadet's ( plywood and flush decked 24'-ish, like a Mystic / Debutante designed to actually sail places rather than torture her crew ) visiting; due to silly regulations of the time, they often sailed without engines and sculled everywhere in calms.

This had the no doubt accidental byproduct of creating generations of red hot sailors.

While one sees a sad majority of British yots roll up the foresail and slap on the iron donkey the moment things become even slightly awkward, a French sailor will keep sailing.

They have tasty boats like Ovni's, while our British Southerlys are best not observed below the waterline by anyone with a sailor's or designer's eye.

In France, sailing is a national sport and their top sailors are held in rock star / Formula 1 status, household names; look where all the top races start, from multihulls to solo transat jobs...

 

[Daydream believer]

For the benefit of anyone else planning to use the word, I should point out that pejorative has only one r.

You had to look it up as well did you !!!!

 

[Keen_Ed]

Tenner a month for the lot plus so many more.....

https://us.readly.com/

yup. 1account works across ?5?devices too, so does a whole family.

 

[doug748]

It might be that the answer is to put more titles into the market, not less.

Given that printing is no longer the labour intensive enterprise it once was, keeping the presses turning is the prime objective. Of course this means paring down journalistic manning to the bone and spreading advertising income across the business. These are the some motor cycling titles you may have seen up the newsagent:

Classic Bike Guide
The Classic MotorCycle
Old Bike Mart
Back Street Heroes
Classic Motorcycle Mechanics
Classic Racer
Classic Dirt Bike
RealClassic
Motorcycle Monthly
Motorcycle Sport & Leisure
Fast Bikes
Classic Scooterist
Scootering
Twist & Go

All published by one company.

 

[Fantasie 19]

Tenner a month for the lot plus so many more.....

https://us.readly.com/

Remarkable, even given the traditional price gouging for the UK market (£10 vs $10 in US ) all the main sailing magazines (including PBO) plus the Beano for less than a tenner!