What is happening at EVO magazine?
Discussion
Well after reading this thread I decided to give Readly a try, trial offer of £7.99 for 3 months will save me a fortune in print magazines ... I’ll cancel me Evo sub in the morning.
Early days yet but first impressions are good - the Mrs has already said she won’t miss all the magazines around the house
Early days yet but first impressions are good - the Mrs has already said she won’t miss all the magazines around the house
SydneyBridge said:
Thanks for the reply Boxer (aka SSO). I was the one who asked if you were still in Evo
Your updates were one of the best parts of Evo, after Harry left (especially his Zonda ownership experience) and although Simon George posted, they were very rare.
Good luck with your website and again like the story behind the name. Nice to be able to do something like that purely for pleasure and sod any mistakes etc...
Much appreciated. Your updates were one of the best parts of Evo, after Harry left (especially his Zonda ownership experience) and although Simon George posted, they were very rare.
Good luck with your website and again like the story behind the name. Nice to be able to do something like that purely for pleasure and sod any mistakes etc...
I can’t see how Readily isn’t anything but the death knell for magazines though? I don’t know the print media business but how can a £7 subscription service get enough money to publishers to continue?
It might bring in a small amount of money in the short term but it can’t be a viable long term solution can it?
A band couldn’t solely exist on their Spotify payments, but it’s not like a magazine can tour to bring in additional revenue.
I can’t see how the readily model can survive long term?
It might bring in a small amount of money in the short term but it can’t be a viable long term solution can it?
A band couldn’t solely exist on their Spotify payments, but it’s not like a magazine can tour to bring in additional revenue.
I can’t see how the readily model can survive long term?
How much profit is there is every physical subscription copy? Once you've paid for printing and posting etc?
What are the economics of having to print enough copies for every newsagent in the country and round up the unsold issues at the end of the month? How many 'back issues' ever get sold? (Versus having a searchable database of back issues on Readly that people can access).
The magazines will still sell a similar number of copies off the shop shelves (people who buy the magazines 'manually' every month but haven't organised a subscription are unlikely to get Readly) to impulse buyers, train travellers etc.
I'm certainly now reading mags like Autocar on Readly that I would perhaps buy once a year before, so our friends at Haymarket have benefited from increased readership from a high quality (*citation needed) UK individual that will help their ad sales plus whatever Readly will pay them.
What are the economics of having to print enough copies for every newsagent in the country and round up the unsold issues at the end of the month? How many 'back issues' ever get sold? (Versus having a searchable database of back issues on Readly that people can access).
The magazines will still sell a similar number of copies off the shop shelves (people who buy the magazines 'manually' every month but haven't organised a subscription are unlikely to get Readly) to impulse buyers, train travellers etc.
I'm certainly now reading mags like Autocar on Readly that I would perhaps buy once a year before, so our friends at Haymarket have benefited from increased readership from a high quality (*citation needed) UK individual that will help their ad sales plus whatever Readly will pay them.
Truckosaurus said:
How much profit is there is every physical subscription copy? Once you've paid for printing and posting etc?
What are the economics of having to print enough copies for every newsagent in the country and round up the unsold issues at the end of the month? How many 'back issues' ever get sold? (Versus having a searchable database of back issues on Readly that people can access).
The magazines will still sell a similar number of copies off the shop shelves (people who buy the magazines 'manually' every month but haven't organised a subscription are unlikely to get Readly) to impulse buyers, train travellers etc.
I'm certainly now reading mags like Autocar on Readly that I would perhaps buy once a year before, so our friends at Haymarket have benefited from increased readership from a high quality (*citation needed) UK individual that will help their ad sales plus whatever Readly will pay them.
I agree with this, my £7.99 subscription will probably work out more over the year than i have spent on mags in the last couple of years. The big benefit to me know is i have far more choice and can actually read a lot of the mags which I just browsed and put back, unwilling to stump up the purchase price.What are the economics of having to print enough copies for every newsagent in the country and round up the unsold issues at the end of the month? How many 'back issues' ever get sold? (Versus having a searchable database of back issues on Readly that people can access).
The magazines will still sell a similar number of copies off the shop shelves (people who buy the magazines 'manually' every month but haven't organised a subscription are unlikely to get Readly) to impulse buyers, train travellers etc.
I'm certainly now reading mags like Autocar on Readly that I would perhaps buy once a year before, so our friends at Haymarket have benefited from increased readership from a high quality (*citation needed) UK individual that will help their ad sales plus whatever Readly will pay them.
Motorsport is a prime example, I also found it well written and enjoyable, despite the dreaded Trott (his contributions were well written too!).
velocemitch said:
Truckosaurus said:
How much profit is there is every physical subscription copy? Once you've paid for printing and posting etc?
What are the economics of having to print enough copies for every newsagent in the country and round up the unsold issues at the end of the month? How many 'back issues' ever get sold? (Versus having a searchable database of back issues on Readly that people can access).
The magazines will still sell a similar number of copies off the shop shelves (people who buy the magazines 'manually' every month but haven't organised a subscription are unlikely to get Readly) to impulse buyers, train travellers etc.
I'm certainly now reading mags like Autocar on Readly that I would perhaps buy once a year before, so our friends at Haymarket have benefited from increased readership from a high quality (*citation needed) UK individual that will help their ad sales plus whatever Readly will pay them.
I agree with this, my £7.99 subscription will probably work out more over the year than i have spent on mags in the last couple of years. The big benefit to me know is i have far more choice and can actually read a lot of the mags which I just browsed and put back, unwilling to stump up the purchase price.What are the economics of having to print enough copies for every newsagent in the country and round up the unsold issues at the end of the month? How many 'back issues' ever get sold? (Versus having a searchable database of back issues on Readly that people can access).
The magazines will still sell a similar number of copies off the shop shelves (people who buy the magazines 'manually' every month but haven't organised a subscription are unlikely to get Readly) to impulse buyers, train travellers etc.
I'm certainly now reading mags like Autocar on Readly that I would perhaps buy once a year before, so our friends at Haymarket have benefited from increased readership from a high quality (*citation needed) UK individual that will help their ad sales plus whatever Readly will pay them.
Motorsport is a prime example, I also found it well written and enjoyable, despite the dreaded Trott (his contributions were well written too!).
Truckosaurus said:
How much profit is there is every physical subscription copy? Once you've paid for printing and posting etc?
What are the economics of having to print enough copies for every newsagent in the country and round up the unsold issues at the end of the month? How many 'back issues' ever get sold? (Versus having a searchable database of back issues on Readly that people can access).
The magazines will still sell a similar number of copies off the shop shelves (people who buy the magazines 'manually' every month but haven't organised a subscription are unlikely to get Readly) to impulse buyers, train travellers etc.
I'm certainly now reading mags like Autocar on Readly that I would perhaps buy once a year before, so our friends at Haymarket have benefited from increased readership from a high quality (*citation needed) UK individual that will help their ad sales plus whatever Readly will pay them.
Do you really want the answers to these? I've not had a retail magazine for nearly 20 years, but my model was that subscription and retail sales paid the print bill. The cost of editorial, photography, rent etc came from advertising. The margin was pretty thin but doing specials - advertorials or cover mounts - made a huge difference.What are the economics of having to print enough copies for every newsagent in the country and round up the unsold issues at the end of the month? How many 'back issues' ever get sold? (Versus having a searchable database of back issues on Readly that people can access).
The magazines will still sell a similar number of copies off the shop shelves (people who buy the magazines 'manually' every month but haven't organised a subscription are unlikely to get Readly) to impulse buyers, train travellers etc.
I'm certainly now reading mags like Autocar on Readly that I would perhaps buy once a year before, so our friends at Haymarket have benefited from increased readership from a high quality (*citation needed) UK individual that will help their ad sales plus whatever Readly will pay them.
Magazines were not returned. The cover was ripped off and sent back to distribution which credited the retailer from the bar code and the magazines pulped. If you sold more than 75% of what you printed it was considered a mistake: you should have printed more, some people would have bought it but their shop was sold out.
What's changed since then is retailers looking for payments to stock the title. My current magazine is free to members of a trade association, I looked at retail sales for it but didn't think there would be the return: it's very niche.
Some publishers - notably Future - have a model where the cover price is much more important. And of course subscription with no advertising is the model for Which?.
What matters isn't your buying the magazine, it's your spending money with the advertisers.
Simon
SydneyBridge said:
Octane have the right idea in that it seems to be sold around the world with articles catering for all markets .
Also hence has advertising from around the world.
Dont know how many they sell monthly though.
I posted a long entry back on 24th Dec if you want to go back but I’ve extracted from it below...there’s context above and below, but these are the general numbers from ABC or whatever. I said:Also hence has advertising from around the world.
Dont know how many they sell monthly though.
”Private Eye, the Economist - let’s not go near the female/house friendly stuff that can touch 1/2m monthly sales easy - are routinely publications that sell 250k per month. EVO sells around around 42k copies a month. In fact Octane, Motorsport, Autocar, Auto Express, What Car and Car all sit between the 30-48k band. For one reason or another Top Gear sits way out there with routine figures over 115k.”
tigerkoi said:
I posted a long entry back on 24th Dec if you want to go back but I’ve extracted from it below...there’s context above and below, but these are the general numbers from ABC or whatever. I said:
”Private Eye, the Economist - let’s not go near the female/house friendly stuff that can touch 1/2m monthly sales easy - are routinely publications that sell 250k per month. EVO sells around around 42k copies a month. In fact Octane, Motorsport, Autocar, Auto Express, What Car and Car all sit between the 30-48k band. For one reason or another Top Gear sits way out there with routine figures over 115k.”
Thank you for that, very interesting ”Private Eye, the Economist - let’s not go near the female/house friendly stuff that can touch 1/2m monthly sales easy - are routinely publications that sell 250k per month. EVO sells around around 42k copies a month. In fact Octane, Motorsport, Autocar, Auto Express, What Car and Car all sit between the 30-48k band. For one reason or another Top Gear sits way out there with routine figures over 115k.”
I guess a lot of Top gear sales are off the back of the tv show and younger readers
I remember when Viz used to outsell Radio Times ...
SydneyBridge said:
Octane have the right idea in that it seems to be sold around the world with articles catering for all markets .
Also hence has advertising from around the world.
Dont know how many they sell monthly though.
this is very true.Also hence has advertising from around the world.
Dont know how many they sell monthly though.
but the problem with Octane (and Dennis generally) is that they're content light. I used to buy a copy whenever I flew with my wife, I could read the content all too quickly and then we'd flick through the picture ads speculating what car we'd buy next. it was a discussion point not serious shortlisting, any actual purchase would lead into full research! The issue Readly presents is that a lot of readers will be flicking through a LOT faster. As opposed to buying 1 or 2 mags per month, many have now downloaded over 10 car mags alone each month (plus many other genres no doubt). I skip through Dennis titles the fastest, because they're light. Other titles (Motorsport especially) deserve far more attention. if I were an advertiser I'd be trying to ascertain how much time people spend on each title, as I think that relationship will change with the move to a Spotify model.
SydneyBridge said:
Octane have the right idea in that it seems to be sold around the world with articles catering for all markets .
Also hence has advertising from around the world.
Dont know how many they sell monthly though.
EVO is sold elsewhere, and I used to buy the Middle East edition each month (not sure if that still exists).Also hence has advertising from around the world.
Dont know how many they sell monthly though.
SydneyBridge said:
tigerkoi said:
I posted a long entry back on 24th Dec if you want to go back but I’ve extracted from it below...there’s context above and below, but these are the general numbers from ABC or whatever. I said:
”Private Eye, the Economist - let’s not go near the female/house friendly stuff that can touch 1/2m monthly sales easy - are routinely publications that sell 250k per month. EVO sells around around 42k copies a month. In fact Octane, Motorsport, Autocar, Auto Express, What Car and Car all sit between the 30-48k band. For one reason or another Top Gear sits way out there with routine figures over 115k.”
Thank you for that, very interesting ”Private Eye, the Economist - let’s not go near the female/house friendly stuff that can touch 1/2m monthly sales easy - are routinely publications that sell 250k per month. EVO sells around around 42k copies a month. In fact Octane, Motorsport, Autocar, Auto Express, What Car and Car all sit between the 30-48k band. For one reason or another Top Gear sits way out there with routine figures over 115k.”
I guess a lot of Top gear sales are off the back of the tv show and younger readers
I remember when Viz used to outsell Radio Times ...
I’m familiar with a number of industry sectors but the print and publication world isn’t one of them, so someone like Simon (Rockman) will probably be able to tell you better why. But my guess, specifically on the Top Gear example, is that they simply have a wider distribution profile.
I remember visiting the back office campus of a large company (4000 people site), and had its own restaurant, chefs, football pitches, everything....and it’s own newsagent. I remember distinctly going in and finding that whilst the usual magazine suspects, OK, Hello, TV Times etc. were present, the only car mag was Top Gear.
I don’t think, judged by its editorial, that its sought out more for any other reason than it’s more ubiquitous. You can be in the depths of Cornwall or North Wales and it’ll be a likelier title on display in the corner shop than Car or EVO.
Just to add, I think I’ve plonked other figures about relative monthly sales in other posts. But in recap, my view, based on knowing when you’re asked to look at a failing business, company, and either for survival purposes or generating new revenue is working out what works, what doesn’t, where to wield the knife and cut bodies, where leadership needs a reset, where to stream the cash flow to profitable fields, was quite simple: Top Gear is more or less a brand, a big one for many. Car is part of a strong portfolio and their subject matter is broader for the casual reader. Motorsport is niche and will steadily maintain their historic and racing audience. Autocar is a weekly and a generalist. Etc etc. The issue for EVO is they’ve set their stall out as the ‘Thrill of Driving’ and more for the enthusiastic range of the reader spectrum if that’s the right way of putting it. I think their raison d’aitre is under greater pressure as all external factors start to bite. Spending efforts on their own digital platform, whilst their stablemate (Octane) didn’t utilise it, and other competing publications started to jump on the Readly bandwagon, just doesn’t make commercial sense when viewed from afar.
In the case of Octane, a magazine I like a lot, I believe that because they’ve got a broad agenda - they can be delivering a beautiful expose on an EB110 one page, then delivering the back story on a turbojet car or why the 1948 Preston Tucker ultimately failed, on another - that they’ll maintain a loyal audience and it marks them out as a classy title. Basically they’ve tapped into the broad church that is the world of the automobile and the adverts tailored to, and heavy idealising of the higher end car world - mainly classics - is a niche that few can touch. The writing is often a cut above and whilst Coucher is Coucher, some other contributors give more cerebral text.
Seeing the news on Carillion, Capita etc, and I just see opportunities for juicy restructuring and deep dives into turnaround work on those entities. Anyone who likes to ‘fix or flog’ things would. But the print world is something too I think would be worth getting stuck into. A lot of people writing things off and saying the world has indelibly changed and it’s dying. All the woe. But I think with the right approach, some new views on where the innovation could actually transform legacy challenges, you could see some breakout economics in that game. Interesting.
After all with the dawn of the word processor and email, people were blasé about the future of the pen. Who needs fountain pens? Pah. In 2011 Amazon announced a doubling of sales over previous years in fountain pens. Parker announced five years of growth in 2012. Lamy signalled strong digit growth through the recession. Some businesses and industries aren’t always destined to fail. But they need a vision to free them from the shackles of ‘this is how things are...’, to move forward.
I like my Parker Duofold Centennial btw.
I wonder how much blame (for the declining sales of EVO and the like) can be put at the door of Tesco?! "What", I hear you say...
Well, Tesco Express are on every high street and they've replaced the local newsagent/general store in many towns and villages (like my own village) which used to stock a wider range of titles. In my experience Tesco expresses always stock Top Gear, often Auto Express and sometimes Autocar, but never CAR or EVO.
Its a bit depressing actually that Top Gear is far and away the best selling car magazine, its one that I buy maybe once a year if they have a really good article...
Anyway, everyone has their own likes and dislikes, but I really enjoyed this months EVO. Nice mix of motors including one of my all time faves, the Lotus Carlton. They're also probably the only mag with the balls to rate the new Hyundai above the Golf GTI in a hot hatch feature. Compare that with this weeks Autocar Hot hatch feature, which is just a joke.
Having waited two months for a response from evo on a problem I’ve been having with downloading the digital copy, and that response still not resolving the problem, I have finally cancelled my subscription. I’ve been reading evo for about 15 years now.
I’ve taken the advice of others on here and got a Readly subscription. All the magazines I read are on there (even Rouleur, which surprised me), plus a few that I used to read but haven’t paid for in a while. The app is great too.
Between that and my ‘free’ Times subscription, I probably won’t ever buy a magazine or paper again.
I’ve taken the advice of others on here and got a Readly subscription. All the magazines I read are on there (even Rouleur, which surprised me), plus a few that I used to read but haven’t paid for in a while. The app is great too.
Between that and my ‘free’ Times subscription, I probably won’t ever buy a magazine or paper again.
at this stage I've taken to ordering old copies of mags off eBay. ordered an old issue of performance car because it had a group test of Sierra Cassie, Legacy turbo and Integrale HF 16V. I didn't even realise it was the issue from the month I was born and due to pure coincidence it came through the letterbox on my birthday!
as a nice bonus the Clarkson articles were pure gold as were the demon tweeks ads, dimma kits galore.
Have a few old eCoty issues lined up to purchase next.
Many are the same price as buying a new issue from the newsagent and the content is far superior and far lighter on ads (that said some of the old ads are cool)
as a nice bonus the Clarkson articles were pure gold as were the demon tweeks ads, dimma kits galore.
Have a few old eCoty issues lined up to purchase next.
Many are the same price as buying a new issue from the newsagent and the content is far superior and far lighter on ads (that said some of the old ads are cool)
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