What is happening at EVO magazine?

[NathanChadwick]

greenarrow said:

Hence why Modern Classics died. Just not enough people who will put their hand in their pocket and support it.

We had the readers. Sadly, not the advertisers. That is the reason it closed. We outsold Evo and Car on a few occasions, which was quite something for a team of three and a third of the budget, perhaps even less. We were still profitable at the end, but the target was 20 per cent, we were 15 per cent, and heading into COVID. Management believed that advertisers would run away – what we saw was a furlough splurge and an enormous upswing in values and consumer buying power, particularly for modern classics. Ho hum. There was a bit of circling the horses around the titles they believed would best weather the storm – understandable, really.

This is an Evo thread and unfair on that team to discuss the wider issues MC had from my POV – but the perennial request for 'cheaper' cars and 'modern classics' in Evo in this thread has to be tempered by business realities. Magazines are, after all, a business – and I wish the team at Evo all the best.

Assistant Editor of Modern Classics speaking...

Edited by NathanChadwick on Thursday 18th April 13:41

[cerb4.5lee]

I still miss Modern Classics magazine, and I've still got every copy of it. It was a shame to see it go I thought.

I bet a Modern EV magazine would fly off the shelves nowadays I would've thought. EVs are the brave new world for certain.

[NathanChadwick]

cerb4.5lee said:

I still miss Modern Classics magazine, and I've still got every copy of it. It was a shame to see it go I thought.

I bet a Modern EV magazine would fly off the shelves nowadays I would've thought. EVs are the brave new world for certain.

Thank you. However, as Andrewcliffe points out, there were tonal issues. It made us very popular with a wide demographic, but one that advertisers weren't interested in. It was great fun to write – it was pitched at a broader and fundamentally different base than Evo, remember – but six-eight months before the end I was, let's say, weighing up the options and the wider corporate environment meant that when I got over the initial 'F***K my mortgage!' I was hardly surprised.


As for an EV magazine – it's been tried and prototyped but it comes back to the same problem – preaching eco-friendlyness by printing on dead trees and shifting them about via diesel trucks is a mixed message...

Edited by NathanChadwick on Thursday 18th April 13:58

[CABC]

NathanChadwick said:

Thank you. However, as Andrewcliffe points out, there were tonal issues. It made us very popular with a wide demographic, but one that advertisers weren't interested in. It was great fun to write – it was pitched at a broader and fundamentally different base than Evo, remember – but six-eight months before the end I was, let's say, weighing up the options and the wider corporate environment meant that when I got over the initial 'F***K my mortgage!' I was hardly surprised.

Edited by NathanChadwick on Thursday 18th April 13:58

your input is welcomed and I think highly relevant to the discussion.

I wonder whether your advertiser problem would have eased over time? people in ad agencies aren't the most broad thinking individuals in my experience, new scares them and disturbs their comfort zone. MC readership had good disposable income, and was more than "what old wreck could I buy as my daily" type. Your choice of paper didn't bother me, but I could see how it could be looked down on. This sector is strong, the number of people who want a modern classic is being swelled by those who have the company/family EV but now want some fun. New cars aren't as much weekend fun as they used to be as they're so much heavier. An EV6 owner doesn't want a slower BMW for a Sunday blast.

[NathanChadwick]

CABC said:

your input is welcomed and I think highly relevant to the discussion.

I wonder whether your advertiser problem would have eased over time? people in ad agencies aren't the most broad thinking individuals in my experience, new scares them and disturbs their comfort zone. MC readership had good disposable income, and was more than "what old wreck could I buy as my daily" type. Your choice of paper didn't bother me, but I could see how it could be looked down on. This sector is strong, the number of people who want a modern classic is being swelled by those who have the company/family EV but now want some fun. New cars aren't as much weekend fun as they used to be as they're so much heavier. An EV6 owner doesn't want a slower BMW for a Sunday blast.

I have to be careful what I say, because it is still a bone of contention between those of us involved four years afterwards. However, I could see the way it was going and I listened to the ad sales staff, and dealers. For example, specialist/classic dealers rarely make a large profit on cars below £26k. It is why it's often rare you'll see iconic modern classic hot hatches for sale at classic dealers, other than the usual 'bankers' – 205 GTI, R5 GT Turbo, Golf GTI, Clio Williams. Maybe the 306 GTI-6/Rallye now. The Ford market is a world unto itself.

This is critically important, because apart from those few examples, if you put 'cheaper' cars on the cover, or feature them prominently, why would classic dealers advertise their more expensive cars against cheaper cars they do not stock?

It gets worse than that. While I know many high-end collectors with hot hatches perched next to their unobtanium supercars and classics, the perception is that the owners of such cheap cars are unlikely to drop £4k on a watch, or £20k on a restoration, or £15k on a wooden car house. You can see the problem. It is, incidentally, a similar problem that befell Performance Car when it was forced downmarket to appeal to the mass market. The warnings were there from history – both iterations of PC, actually.

Eventually, we did try to push upstairs, as Underworld notably once put it. But by then when we tried to go upmarket our core audience abandoned those issues, and because we were known as 'the hot hatch mag' the new readers we were after didn't take a look. We really did try with some covers - 997 Turbo/R35GTR/R8 cover, Best Of British (celebrating the best of 1999 20 years hence with the TVR Tuscan, Lotus Esprit Sport 350 and Aston DB7 Vantage), Lotus Carlton vs Alpina B10 Biturbo vs Merc E500 in London... but they failed to reach the new audience.

There was one exception – the Porsche 997 Carrera S vs Aston V8 Vantage vs Maserati GranSport, which outperformed the entire market in January, usually the magazine dead zone.
Though the editorial tone was set at a level not quite as, shall we say, sophisticated as Evo, we did employ some of the best snappers in the business – Dean Smith, Jordan Butters, Mark Riccioni – and did proper road trips with meagre budgets, so the production quality was there. Utterly ruined by the matt paper though, out of the editorial team's hands.

Could it have survived? Even before COVID it was on the bubble. It would have required significant money to redesign and remarket the magazine at a higher level, something that was probably both politically and fiscally unviable. And not everyone agreed with me, I was just the assistant (deputy) editor. I'm still proud of what it achieved, and how it really helped move modern classics – as a type of car – forward in people's appreciation after years of being ignored by established magazines. Despite the stress, the nervous breakdowns, the arguments, I was extremely lucky to be there from the start and until the end, and I'm happy people identified with it and still miss it.

[renmure]

NathanChadwick said:

Lots of interesting stuff.

Just piping up to say, I thought MC was a great magazine.

I actually remember picking up the 1st Edition, probably on a Supermarket shelf, and thinking it was some sort of one-off special edition that amazingly seemed to have something that interested me on every page. Finding out it was a regular magazine was really a moment of joy. I may have skim read a couple of articles over the period but can't imagine I ever skipped any. I'm sure I even read most of the ads!!

I know this is an Evo thread but even when Evo was at its peak for me there were quite a few reviews, articles and opinion pieces I just glossed over in each edition. Now, there's more I'd gloss over than bother reading which is why I don't buy it any more.

[NathanChadwick]

renmure said:

Just piping up to say, I thought MC was a great magazine.

I actually remember picking up the 1st Edition, probably on a Supermarket shelf, and thinking it was some sort of one-off special edition that amazingly seemed to have something that interested me on every page. Finding out it was a regular magazine was really a moment of joy. I may have skim read a couple of articles over the period but can't imagine I ever skipped any. I'm sure I even read most of the ads!!

Well in fairness, that's essentially how it started. It was a full magazine sneaked out under the nose of Germany under the auspices of 'well, it's a bookazine really...' when it clearly wasn't. Pretty much all of it was bespoke; I then went through it and reset the tone in a night, under Keith's suggestion.
Some of the writers – all of whom I respect – hadn't quite come at the subject from the right angle. They were new car journalists who were writing about them from a new car journalist point of view, even if some of them owned classics themselves. There's a nuance to writing for a classic audience – of course we know that, say, an Astra GTE 16v or Escort RS Turbo S1 is not going to cut the Angel Delight, let alone the mustard, compared to a new hot hatch. That's not the point, the point was to understand and empathise with those who owned them 'now' and who lusted after them 'then', and bring those two points together. The tone was designed to be as inclusive as possible, bringing together grown up Max Power guys together with premium marque lovers. It was also intended to be less, shall we say, snooty than some classic car magazines... of course, arguably that counted against us later on, from an advertising and market positioning POV.

This was the key, critical difference to Evo – MC was never about the empirical digestion of ultimate chassis dynamics; these cars were new enough that original new-car road tests were in living memory, for the most part. Of course how they drove played a part, but also important was everything else about why someone would choose to spend £60,000 on a Lotus Carlton compared to a nearly new M5. A nearly new M5 is just a nearly new BMW. A Lotus Carlton is a Lotus Carlton. That was the nuance.

It was also about how cars are used today, unlike most classic mags who demand original cars only. Take my 147 GTA for example – 95 per cent of those that are on the road have the aftermarket Quaife LSD and an aftermarket suspension kit. Reviewing a bone stock original car offers... what, exactly, when you can order the old copies of Evo off eBay for a fiver, and you can't buy one anyway and the modded cars are infinitely better and higher valued to boot?

The tone; well, as i say it was written for a broader base of enthusiasts that ranged from base-model Rover Metros to eyepoppingly rare aircooled lightweight 911s, to Koenig-tuned Ferrari Testarossas and Rover 216 GTIs. It also aimed to bring cars that had been lauded in their period but forgotten or trashed through revisionist, or blinkered, later copy and paste writing. Cars such as the Renault 19 16v, Ford Escort RS2000 MkV and, yes, the Fiat Tipo Sedicivalvole. Great cars that have been forgotten.

It definitely wasn't perfect, mistakes were made (Lotus Espirit on the cover, anybody?) but it was all about having fun* with classics.

• well apart from when we were forced to crowbar market analysis into... every... single... piece... of... copy.

[DSC OFF]

andrewcliffe said:

I liked the concept of Modern Classics, I just didn't like the execution. The journalism was sub-par and the matey banter style of writing really annoyed. I bought a few copies where there was an car featured I was particularly interested in, other than that it was a flick through at the supermarket.

If someone came along and did it in a more grown up way, then I would probably be a regular buyer or subscriber.

As a few others have said give Rush Magazine a try. It's excellent

[CABC]

NathanChadwick said:

There was one exception – the Porsche 997 Carrera S vs Aston V8 Vantage vs Maserati GranSport, which outperformed the entire market in January, usually the magazine dead zone

sadly predictable!
someone at Dennis Pub once told me that they had to do an annual MGB feature article to bump sales.

your posts have been informative, thank you for contributing to the thread. This topic is broader than just Evo too.

I think this comparison of odd combos or past & present is well suited to video content. I really enjoy Everyday Driver. those guys produce professional and considered content.

[Truckosaurus]

NathanChadwick said:

....well apart from when we were forced to crowbar market analysis into... every... single... piece... of... copy.

It did seem odd that there was always discussion of values and buying the cars in the article when if often also said there were only a handful of cars remaining so there would be no realistic way of easily buying one.

I was thinking about Youtube views vs Magazine sales the other day, I notice EVO is listed as selling an average of 17k issues ( https://www.abc.org.uk/product/8165 ). Some youth filming Youtube videos on their telephone and editing in their bedroom would be disappointed with 17k Youtube views in a month.

A modest Youtube channel like Hubnut got 622k views in the last 30 days, someone like Shmee got 9m views.

If you were an advertiser you'd be thinking what the point of a print ad would be based on numbers like that.

[NathanChadwick]

Truckosaurus said:

It did seem odd that there was always discussion of values and buying the cars in the article when if often also said there were only a handful of cars remaining so there would be no realistic way of easily buying one.

I was thinking about Youtube views vs Magazine sales the other day, I notice EVO is listed as selling an average of 17k issues ( https://www.abc.org.uk/product/8165 ). Some youth filming Youtube videos on their telephone and editing in their bedroom would be disappointed with 17k Youtube views in a month.

A modest Youtube channel like Hubnut got 622k views in the last 30 days, someone like Shmee got 9m views.

If you were an advertiser you'd be thinking what the point of a print ad would be based on numbers like that.

It's not a like-for-like comparison. I don't want to appear like I'm picking on Ian or Shmee as I don't know their audience click throughs, so more broadly...

It's all very well having 700,000 views, 350,000 likes or so on, but as part of my octopus-like freelance world I have an insight into the metrics (I got Classic Cars from 5500 Facebook likes to 1.7m organically in 18 months in the good old days, and still have a toe in that world now). The click throughs to further content beyond the social media network are terrible, low single-digits. So while an enormous amount of followers and likes flatters the ego, it does not necessarily translate into a purchase. Therefore the quality of those eyes is quite low.

However, if we look at a magazine, the quality of those eyes, even if they are far fewer is much higher. This is a person who is invested enough in the subject to go out and buy or subscribe to a magazine at £5+ a pop these days. Therefore, it is more likely that an advertiser will find an audience in a smaller, more focused pool. It also means that giving away copies to specialists/dealers etc, allows The Right Person to see the ads while waiting to have their car worked on. These days it is the Quality of the eyes, not the Number of eyes. That was my thinking about moving MC further upscale, and the entire raison d'etre behind Strada.

This is why I'm not a huge fan of Readly. Yes, a publisher can say that x amount of people have read it on the platform, but are they a committed enough reader (following my previous point) or one level up from an Instagram scroller? Modern Classics was one of the most popular magazines on Readly (something in the misty fields of memory says it was number 2 for a while, but I may be wrong), but this didn't translate to any extra ad sales.

There is also the 'slow media' part of reading a magazine. Think about how you consumer YouTube or any digital content, compared to a magazine. You can't wait to skip a Youtube ad or scroll past an advert, whereas your eye may linger over an advert for a mental pause after reading text.

That's not to say the ad market isn't challenging, though the nature of advertising is different now, especially where it originates from. There are many reasons for that, but the growth of online auction sites has pretty much torpedo'd the prestige dealer SOR model, hence the reduced number of 'prestige dealerships' compared to yesteryear. Clever dealers specialise in a type of car, or even a marque, and build up a following within those scenes. Cleverer dealers see the value of advertising in supporting a 'scene' that attracts new customers, even though it's not a 'transactionary' advertising arrangement - ie. advertise a particular car, sell that particular car. It's more about branding, rather than selling individual cars.

Sorry kind of deviated a little there.

Edited by NathanChadwick on Friday 19th April 13:06

[DSC OFF]

Truckosaurus said:

It did seem odd that there was always discussion of values and buying the cars in the article when if often also said there were only a handful of cars remaining so there would be no realistic way of easily buying one.

I was thinking about Youtube views vs Magazine sales the other day, I notice EVO is listed as selling an average of 17k issues ( https://www.abc.org.uk/product/8165 ). Some youth filming Youtube videos on their telephone and editing in their bedroom would be disappointed with 17k Youtube views in a month.

A modest Youtube channel like Hubnut got 622k views in the last 30 days, someone like Shmee got 9m views.

If you were an advertiser you'd be thinking what the point of a print ad would be based on numbers like that.

Because print is far more memorable and better targeted IMHO. I can remember adverts by collecting cars/the market by Bonhams and what car they featured (eg M3 CSL, 996 GT3 RS, 22B etc) from up to 12 months ago. I couldn't tell you what advert interrupted Harry's Garage 750S road trip...although I could tell you his sponsors. The danger is will the new generation of advertising execs feel the same about printed matter having grown up in the digital era, and no indication of ROI...

[Truckosaurus]

NathanChadwick said:

....
Sorry kind of deviated a little there....

It's a good deviation, and something that those of us who want to keep reading physical magazines need to think about (eg. perhaps we need to accept high enough cover prices to make the publication a going concern).

I assume the rates magazines are able to charge for ads are ever decreasing as well, as even with 'quality' readers there are still fewer than 10/20/30 years ago.

[andrew]

Truckosaurus said:

It did seem odd that there was always discussion of values and buying the cars in the article when if often also said there were only a handful of cars remaining so there would be no realistic way of easily buying one.

I was thinking about Youtube views vs Magazine sales the other day, I notice EVO is listed as selling an average of 17k issues ( https://www.abc.org.uk/product/8165 ). Some youth filming Youtube videos on their telephone and editing in their bedroom would be disappointed with 17k Youtube views in a month.

A modest Youtube channel like Hubnut got 622k views in the last 30 days, someone like Shmee got 9m views.

If you were an advertiser you'd be thinking what the point of a print ad would be based on numbers like that.

wow
car magazine 93,246 in the same period !

[CABC]

NathanChadwick said:

It's not a like-for-like comparison. I don't want to appear like I'm picking on Ian or Shmee as I don't know their audience click throughs, so more broadly...

It's all very well having 700,000 views, 350,000 likes or so on, but as part of my octopus-like freelance world I have an insight into the metrics (I got Classic Cars from 5500 Facebook likes to 1.7m organically in 18 months in the good old days, and still have a toe in that world now). The click throughs to further content beyond the social media network are terrible, low single-digits. So while an enormous amount of followers and likes flatters the ego, it does not necessarily translate into a purchase. Therefore the quality of those eyes is quite low.

However, if we look at a magazine, the quality of those eyes, even if they are far fewer is much higher. This is a person who is invested enough in the subject to go out and buy or subscribe to a magazine at £5+ a pop these days. Therefore, it is more likely that an advertiser will find an audience in a smaller, more focused pool. It also means that giving away copies to specialists/dealers etc, allows The Right Person to see the ads while waiting to have their car worked on. These days it is the Quality of the eyes, not the Number of eyes. That was my thinking about moving MC further upscale, and the entire raison d'etre behind Strada.

This is why I'm not a huge fan of Readly. Yes, a publisher can say that x amount of people have read it on the platform, but are they a committed enough reader (following my previous point) or one level up from an Instagram scroller? Modern Classics was one of the most popular magazines on Readly (something in the misty fields of memory says it was number 2 for a while, but I may be wrong), but this didn't translate to any extra ad sales.

There is also the 'slow media' part of reading a magazine. Think about how you consumer YouTube or any digital content, compared to a magazine. You can't wait to skip a Youtube ad or scroll past an advert, whereas your eye may linger over an advert for a mental pause after reading text.

That's not to say the ad market isn't challenging, though the nature of advertising is different now, especially where it originates from. There are many reasons for that, but the growth of online auction sites has pretty much torpedo'd the prestige dealer SOR model, hence the reduced number of 'prestige dealerships' compared to yesteryear. Clever dealers specialise in a type of car, or even a marque, and build up a following within those scenes. Cleverer dealers see the value of advertising in supporting a 'scene' that attracts new customers, even though it's not a 'transactionary' advertising arrangement - ie. advertise a particular car, sell that particular car. It's more about branding, rather than selling individual cars.

Sorry kind of deviated a little there.

Edited by NathanChadwick on Friday 19th April 13:06

slight problem with the above.
Yes, the ad agencies are lazy and so try to press the responsibility onto the publisher. "can you demonstrate click through?", "can you prove xx?". Meanwhile they'll splash ££ on old trusted media that has no or little proof of success either. Amazon did a great job 25yrs ago buying enormous amounts of ppc banners that never performed, and so paid very little. But they were smart and understood that was a cost effective way to achieve brand awareness. It's the same with YouTube ads today. Yes, we all skip through them but if the campaign has great content, is especially relevant and is repeated it'll push through. Agencies need to be creative too.
Busy people with high disposable probably are using YouTube and Readly rather than cumbersome magazines. And, having been made aware of something, using a search engine (a whole different debate on that!). Ad agencies should be trying to find buyers and understand how buyers think/research/commit.

Quality of the eyes is one thing, knowing the quality and value of who those eyes are attached to more so.
I feel your frustration. I blame the headcount-heavy, intelligence-light agency world. I moved into that space during dotcom from enterprise solutions and it was, er, different.

[AmosMoses]

DSC OFF said:

As a few others have said give Rush Magazine a try. It's excellent

Another vote for Rush, bloody brilliant magazine thats full of proper car enthusiast content. Looking forward to seeing their subsequent issues.

[greenarrow]

NathanChadwick said:

greenarrow said:

Hence why Modern Classics died. Just not enough people who will put their hand in their pocket and support it.

We had the readers. Sadly, not the advertisers. That is the reason it closed. We outsold Evo and Car on a few occasions, which was quite something for a team of three and a third of the budget, perhaps even less. We were still profitable at the end, but the target was 20 per cent, we were 15 per cent, and heading into COVID. Management believed that advertisers would run away – what we saw was a furlough splurge and an enormous upswing in values and consumer buying power, particularly for modern classics. Ho hum. There was a bit of circling the horses around the titles they believed would best weather the storm – understandable, really.

This is an Evo thread and unfair on that team to discuss the wider issues MC had from my POV – but the perennial request for 'cheaper' cars and 'modern classics' in Evo in this thread has to be tempered by business realities. Magazines are, after all, a business – and I wish the team at Evo all the best.

Assistant Editor of Modern Classics speaking...

Edited by NathanChadwick on Thursday 18th April 13:41

Thanks for the clarification. Makes it even sadder that the magazine ended. As you will gather, it had a lot of fans on Pistonheads. I remember finding Issue one and being hooked. Bought every single issue. I think the readership issue was helped by you guys starting the mag in mid or late 2015, just as the modern classic market was gathering momentum....I think its a market that will stay strong. I mean, can you see millennials buying old MGs or Triumphs, when they get to that middle age period where they can afford a toy? I can't, but a FWD late 90s or early 00s hot hatch I can definitely see them wanting....

[Limpet]

NathanChadwick said:

This is why I'm not a huge fan of Readly. Yes, a publisher can say that x amount of people have read it on the platform, but are they a committed enough reader (following my previous point) or one level up from an Instagram scroller? Modern Classics was one of the most popular magazines on Readly (something in the misty fields of memory says it was number 2 for a while, but I may be wrong), but this didn't translate to any extra ad sales.

I'm a Readly user, and I do sometimes skim/flick through stuff, but there are also a few titles on there (Practical Classics being one) that I do take the time to sit quietly and read with a cuppa in the same way I would a paper copy.

One thing I've always wondered is how the publishers or titles are compensated when they have their publications on Readly. Is it based on views/downloads, or is it related to the advertising side of things? I'm guessing it must make at least some sense from a business perspective given the number of titles available on the platform, but I've never quite understood how it works.

[andrewcliffe]

Looking at the ABC website, surprised to see Auto Express at twice the circulation of Autocar.

[highway]

I’m amazed Autocar limps on. It’s expensive now, whereas it used to be comparatively cheap. I know they don’t have Chris Harris anymore. Maybe Sutcliffe or Goodwin still contribute? Never cared much for Steve Cropley and no one else springs to mind. The news is old hat even when published weekly. It’s online every day and the forums are as interesting, for me, as anything anyone is paid to write.