What is happening at EVO magazine?

[camshafted]

iSore said:

Paul Who?

I had to Google him. He was in some awful film I took my nephew to see a while back.

You must have been on holiday that week!

[Sa Calobra]

Mags have only themselves to blame
'Web readership is the reason for print decline they say
No, sales team are targeted with ever increasing mag space content. They get it, readers get fked off. Mag sales drop, sales team keeps pushing and gradually the mix from content to ads becomes a real obvious issue.

So with readership down editor puts the price up. More customers leave. Editor fires quality well paid writers (or they are driven out).

Editor then blames online readership. Rather than themselves.

It's happening in mountain bike/road bike mags. Prices are now 5.50-7£ a month. The price of a decent novel.

I used to buy 2-3 mags a month. I still look through them hoping to buy one, the ads and thin quality put me off.

[havoc]

Sa Calobra said:

the ads and thin quality put me off.

I have a subscription to Classic & Sports Car which I am starting to wonder whether to renew, based on the increasing advert-to-content ratio.

I really do NOT need to see 40 or 50 pages of adverts from classic car dealers trying to sell overpriced exotica that maybe 0.01% of the readership can actually afford...

It's the same reason I now despise Octane - this obsession with money and 'status'.




(And yes, I'm doing reasonably nicely for myself thank-you...despite my profession I've always subscribed to the notion "he who dies with the most toys...still dies the same as everyone else")

[0a]

I stopped buying it when it became like a Porsche aficionado magazine with vast amounts of space for every minor trim change.
Just dull.

[a11y_m]

Hmm, I'm several issues behind on my EVO subscription - still got at least 2 copies still sealed in the grey plastic so haven't got to the reduced/lowered print quality ones yet. Not good. TBH I don't know why I keep it going as it's rare I get the time to sit down and read it properly: young kids. Only really happens on holiday and they it's great as invariably I'm somewhere without internet access so print media is the only solution.

The only other magazine I subscribe to is a mountain-biking one called Singletrack. Many similarities: (usually) quality magazine, nice print quality, heavily used online forum full of the usuals, etc. Sounds like EVO's going through similar to what Singletrack's been on the cusp of for ages. Debate around keeping print version going. Singletracks solution has been to drop to less issues per year but up the paper quality and up the page count, but at the same time not filling it with ads. Unsure EVO could go the same way as content is very different: EVO being mainly current tests, while Singletrack is largely escapism and adventures and less about the 'equipment'. The other MTB magazine I used to read - Dirt - stopped print copies a couple of years back and is a great loss. I can't stand their website in the same way I can't stand EVO's website, so if EVO go down the same route that'll be it for me.

Hey ho, I'm on holiday next week with sweet FA internet access so planning a catch up on my EVOs and Singletracks. If the kids allow.


Oh, and whoever said about Octane being so far up its own arse - spot on. Tried it a few times but just can't stomach the writing style. I'm 38 so maybe missing the point, but really can't stand it!

[Otispunkmeyer]

camshafted said:

£8 a month!

I have to say at £8 that looks far too good to be true. Is that an introductory price or something?

[Sa Calobra]

I find singletrack Abit vanilla, they don't stick their neck out on reviews. It's too nicey.

Dirt lost it when the ad content ramped right up and the mag started sliming.

[Clockwork Cupcake]

a11y_m said:

Oh, and whoever said about Octane being so far up its own arse - spot on.

That would have been me.

[camshafted]

Otispunkmeyer said:

I have to say at £8 that looks far too good to be true. Is that an introductory price or something?

No, that’s the full price. And they are just the car mags. Just a small fraction of the mags included (sport, politics, lifestyle, interior & design etc). I sound like a salesman but there really are that many mags there! Can’t be good in the long run.

[Clockwork Cupcake]

camshafted said:

No, that’s the full price. And they are just the car mags. Just a small fraction of the mags included (sport, politics, lifestyle, interior & design etc). I sound like a salesman but there really are that many mags there! Can’t be good in the long run.

Blimey. Each mag must be getting only pennies!

[a11y_m]

Sa Calobra said:

I find singletrack Abit vanilla, they don't stick their neck out on reviews. It's too nicey.

Dirt lost it when the ad content ramped right up and the mag started sliming.

Yeah, I don't tend to read their reviews that much - more about the other articles. Read from issue 4, cancelled a few years ago but resubscribed around a year ago. It's alright. Best of the printed MTB mags by a long way. I struggle to take to online magazines TBH.

Agree re Dirt - wasn't great towards the end. Heard lots of gushing about the Dirt 20 years issue they published a year ago but still haven't actually finished reading it. Lost interest.

[thegreenhell]

a11y_m said:

Singletracks solution has been to drop to less issues per year but up the paper quality and up the page count, but at the same time not filling it with ads.

I wish Evo had the balls to do that. I'd happily pay a tenner for a quality mag every couple of months, but it would have to have double the content-to-adverts ratio, and quality content at that, not just some extra full-page glossy photos. The extra pages would need to be full of quality writing.

[Clockwork Cupcake]

thegreenhell said:

I wish Evo had the balls to do that. I'd happily pay a tenner for a quality mag every couple of months, but it would have to have double the content-to-adverts ratio, and quality content at that, not just some extra full-page glossy photos. The extra pages would need to be full of quality writing.

The trouble with a review-based magazine is that it's time-limited. Of course, having said that, print is already behind the curve compared to on-line media. So maybe it is the right direction after all.

Personally, I don't really enjoy online magazines as much as print media. For a start, you have to remember to take a tablet into the loo with you.

[williamp]

gone from Octane and now C&SC. Never likec classic cars, and even more so as they only seem to talk about the value. what to buy NOW etc etc. Now I subscripe to Vantage, the Aston magazine. I'll still but them in the shop,s but only if I really like them

[thegreenhell]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

thegreenhell said:

I wish Evo had the balls to do that. I'd happily pay a tenner for a quality mag every couple of months, but it would have to have double the content-to-adverts ratio, and quality content at that, not just some extra full-page glossy photos. The extra pages would need to be full of quality writing.

The trouble with a review-based magazine is that it's time-limited. Of course, having said that, print is already behind the curve compared to on-line media. So maybe it is the right direction after all.

Personally, I don't really enjoy online magazines as much as print media. For a start, you have to remember to take a tablet into the loo with you.

Like you say, print is always going to be behind the curve for new car reviews. By the time the magazine hits the shops I've usually already read the online reviews and watched a few youtube videos of whatever new car. I think they need to try something different if they're going to survive longer term. But, from reading multiple threads like this, I know I'm not the only one who prefers a paper magazine to something online, so there is hope. There's plenty of interesting things they could do that don't rely on reporting just on the new car launches, many of which they already do but could expand on further.

[coppice]

camshafted said:

Paul Walker's death was the biggest story in the world for a week or so.

I imagine it could have been too late to amend the article in time for publication.

Not on the planet I live - I first heard of him after he died , when I realised he was in the films that twelve year olds of all ages watch . I am now reminded of his premature demise by those tragic little quotes some folk stick on the side of their cars.

[iSore]

camshafted said:

You must have been on holiday that week!

Dude - you nearly had me there.

I like Harry Metcalfe's online vids. The one with his XJ12 Coupe is very good and his drive down to Monaco or wherever in the XJ-S is excellent. He's like Chris Harris' Dad.

Sorry Chris/Harry.

[slk 32]

I bought Evo for years but gradually found less and less of it interested me..in the early noughties it included a lot of 'blue collar heroes'.. cars for the working man to aspire to.

It gradually morphed in to some sort of Porsche wkfest and when Trott arrived and Catchpole left it was the final straw.

Octane has the occassional interesting article but whereas I'd just pick it up and buy it I know leaf through to see if there's anything worthwhile.

Modern classics had the potential to be good but crap quality piper and less than stellar writing limit it.

Surely the sweetspot would be the cars covered in modern classics written about by some decent journos on good paper. Can't be that hard!

[Muzzer79]

It is a bit difficult for EVO. They have to rate cars honestly and they can’t help it if Porsches are so good.

It’s more the repetitiveness of it that bothered me - same tests, same setup, just the Porsche/McLaren/ whatever they were testing had a new door handle spec.....

[coppice]

The frustration with Octane is that if one scythes through The World of Robert Coucher, the man who seems to be morphing into the devil spawn of Alan Partridge and Hugh Hefner, there's some cracking stuff , and Leno , Dron and Simister especially are always a treat to read.

I just have to close my eyes and turn the pages quickly when dear Robert is droning on about his never- never land of fine wines ,Jaguar motor cars, cigar humidors and Hooray Henries .