Upheaval in the French yachting magazines

doug748 said:
keeping the presses turning is the prime objective.

That may well be true be for Mortons Media (who of course own the titles you mentioned) but not for Time Inc. Like most magazine publishers these days, they own no presses. Mortons do, and as you suggest this has a major effect on their business model. EMAP/Bauer, with which you'll be familiar, got rid of their presses decades ago. EMAP's set-up militated against magazines with circulations much under 30,000...or about what the UK's top-selling boating mag sells now...
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As has been said, once you've been reading a magazine for year or two you find all the topics start to come back around again.

And a lot of the time we don't see the articles we want to, if that's because of expense, or unwillingness to upset the companies that make the stuff.
For example I'd love to see a shoot out of Roller Reefing systems, but I haven't been able to find any online at all. Or maybe masts from different manufacturers compared, just something that hasn't been done a hundred times before.
 
Seajet said:
As they were French and sailing related they very probably did it better than any British efforts; we know PBO & YM sales are in freefall due to unimaginative input and forums like this, stand by for charges here and a mass exodus & expansion of NTL !
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You need to get a new source of information or a new dictionary. YM's sales aren't in freefall. That would suggest they are falling fast, out of control. They aren't.

Unimaginative input? You really don't read the magazines do you? :0)
 
I've bought the magazines all my life until recently, and fondly remember ' Small Boat ' with Peter Copley.

I rather doubt Time's output is increasing or even steady as no sailor I know, novice or experienced bothers with the magazines now.

What I will always take my hat off to though was the YM ' Crash Test Boat ' - whoever came up with that idea - and got it approved - should be knighted, a brilliant idea !

Back to the proliferation of magazines on similar themes, when one sees ' Classic Bike ' and ' Classic Boat ', no doubt some car and aeroplane titles like ' Aeroplane ' too, I wonder if a merger ( publishers put to one side for a moment ) with ' Old Glory ' would be of mutual assistance ?

I'd buy it, but then I'm 1,000 years old.
 
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Define 'recently'. Or put another way, what was the last cover date of the issue you bought. :0)

So because no one you know buys the magazine, our circulation is in 'freefall', it an interesting way of judging magazine circulation, however the industry prefers something a little more authoritative, ABC figure to be exact. ;0)

Chris Beeson and I came up with the crash test boat idea in the White Hart, around the corner from the Blue Fin, probably helped by a skin full of Booze and a horrendous crack in the back wall. Paul Gelder got the idea signed off and attracted suitable sponsorship for the project. We wanted to do more with her, we still have many ideas, so we'll see.

We now produce a magazine every 4 weeks, which isn't half bad given the number of staff involved.
 
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snooks said:
Unimaginative input? You really don't read the magazines do you? :0)
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There certainly is a degree of predictability in the contents. Perfectly understandable, of course, as I am sure that for all hobbyist magazines newcomers form a major part of the market, and their interests don't change much.

Last month I picked up what I thought was the latest YM and started reading. It wasn't until near the end that I realised I had actually picked up a four year old one (I need to tidy the toilet more often). I'm not sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that it was just as readable as the current one ...

snooks said:
So because no one you know buys the magazine, our circulation is in 'freefall', it an interesting way of judging magazine circulation, however the industry prefers something a little more authoritative, ABC figure to be exact. ;0)
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Can you tell us them?
 
Joker said:
And I'll give full marks to PBO for the Hantu Biru restoration.
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I'd give 8 out of 10...

I'd have liked them to pick up a wreck but use the kind of materials that your typical penurious yachtie would use rather than gallons of sponsor (??) and other top end products... it strikes me it would make an excellent series of articles if they could investigate/use the kind of stuff you buy in Homebase/B&Q - wood coatings/glues/epoxy's/paints etc - in a boat environment; which one's cut the mustard and which ones are worth avoiding...
 
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macd said:
Google certainly can. They're not secret...in fact that's the main point of them.
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Only the most recent figures are freely available; historic data requires an ABC subscription. See http://www.abc.org.uk/Products-Services/Product-Page/?tid=563 for example.

Press Gazette reported the 2011 annual figures including year-on-year change figures for PBO and YM in 2012 (http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/node/48769) but I can't find anything more recent. If you have had more luck or skill with Google, I'd be interested to see a link.

Incidentally, YM sold 26,158 in 2011 (down 6% on 2010) and 23,510 in 2014, while PBO sold 34,014 in 2011 (down 11% on 2010) and 26,768 in 2014. That puts the cumulative drops over the four years from 2010 to 2014 at 18% for YM and 41% for PBO. It will be interesting to see the 2015 figures when they come out.
 
Snooks.
There is one magazine edition that I enjoy reading over and over again...
84b02974c190c1771566768e5ed3a465_zps2612037b.jpg

Download here
http://www.pbo.co.uk/specials/pbo-issue-no1-4539
Easy to read in iBooks on iPad.
Any chance YM could make their first edition available like this too?
 
JumbleDuck said:
Incidentally, YM sold 26,158 in 2011 (down 6% on 2010) and 23,510 in 2014, while PBO sold 34,014 in 2011 (down 11% on 2010) and 26,768 in 2014. That puts the cumulative drops over the four years from 2010 to 2014 at 18% for YM and 41% for PBO. It will be interesting to see the 2015 figures when they come out.
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Doesn't look like a 'freefall' to me :p but more of a 'controlled decline'. :rolleyes:

Lets face it, yottie mags are going to suffer these days - regardless of their content.
Sailing is a minority interest, and an expensive one at that.
Most yotties tend to be old(er) farts, and with advancing years leave the sport/hobby/...
And we/the country have been in financial pooh for going on eight years now. Despite the protestations of our political masters, the benefits of the 'recovery' haven't quite made their way down to Joe Bloggs yet.
So there is no new intake.

I can see all yottie mags going in some sort of 'hibernation mode' - hoping to survive till an economic upturn produces new - wealthy - yotties.

All IMHO, of course.
 
I suspect that the decline is in part caused by the raging population of boat owners. Few young people are able to buy yachts today and new yacht sales are much reduced from the days of Opal Marine etc.

The great thing about a magazine is that they do research, to actually find out facts, what is written on here is often rubbish. They also produce good tips, guides and tests. New boats tests are sadly sanitised and they never say what they mean.

Magazines are great, you can take them on the train, boat and share them.

I will continue subscribing for as long as I can.
 
Seven Spades said:
The great thing about a magazine is that they do research, to actually find out facts, what is written on here is often rubbish. They also produce good tips, guides and tests. New boats tests are sadly sanitised and they never say what they mean.
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As the author of the new boat tests for YM, I can assure you I can and do say what I mean. What I can't and won't do is be unfairly critical or positive and always try to give a balanced report. If I could afford, to I wouldn't buy every boat I test, but I'm not every reader and I try not to let my personal views about certain design aspects cloud my judgement. After all not everyone wants to sail off into the yonder.

If I feel I might be sticking the knife in too far then twisting it by being too critical I'll run it passed the editor, if he's happy he might run it passed the legal department, but when I've broken a boat I've said so, when I've found something dangerous or lacking in common sense I've said so.

If I find something and the manufacturer is in the process of changing it or will change it I might mention it but I won't labour the point.

There are very few bad boats out there and I only have around 2,000 words to include everything so at times when I'd like to go intodetail I simply don't have the space.

It's nice to know someone reads them though ;0)
 
snooks said:
As the author of the new boat tests for YM, I can assure you I can and do say what I mean...

...and I only have around 2,000 words to include everything so at times when I'd like to go into detail I simply don't have the space.

It's nice to know someone reads them though ;0)
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Suggestion to the editor: why not increase Snooks' space to say 3000 words? It's pretty clear from on here - for example the infamous GT-35 Controversy! - that many people not only read his reviews, but simultaneously feel he has skipped over areas of particular interest to them and upon which they would like to have the benefit of his opinion.

Hope the bust-ups won't be 50% mind :D
 
I also heard Richard Shead is leaving on the 8th Jan and has also left here already, perhaps for a little time out.

I mean he would be crazy to get involved in the annual print is dead argument whilst sat at his in laws somewhere up north .... Or would he...
 
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