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Just googled it on a whim. Is the circulation really only~10k?
Slightly surprised by how low the competition is too, MBR 17k, MBUK 28k. What MTB appeared to be ~11k before it went under.
I'm surprised they are that high. I have only bought one magazine in at least 2 years and it had the same old recycled articles and 2/3rds adverts as before. Everything you need is available online, easy to access and free at that.
My local sainsburys has 0 mtb mags now.... They used to stock MBUK, but have recently reduced there mag shelving - cycling mags have almost disappeared completely I only saw 'Cyclist' in there today .
Newspapers and Mags are in decline across the board. Retailers can't wait to get rid of the large magazine space for something more profitable. The only reason we have any magazines other than maybe 4 or 5 regular sellers in my shop is because Wh Smith require us to keep them (we'd loose our newspapers).
We have 1.5m of shelving dedicated to mags, and make no more than 20quid a week gross sales (and that's on a good week) from the non reserve titles.
There aren't that many websites that write high quality articles really, most of them talk about news (new stuff coming out or race related) or do reviews. I think that's why What mountain bike, mbr and mbuk are probably suffering badly, as that's basically what they all do. Some websites seem to do well out of the super technical articles too, whilst the magazines tend to stay well clear as they can't dedicate enough space to a topic that many will find dull.
The Cranked approach is a much better one for print, and Singletrack are definitely veering more to this approach too, which I think is a good thing. Cranked especially is a joy to read, the paper is great quality, there's hardly any adverts and the writing and photography is good. They dont bother with reviews or news at all, their articles could have been written at almodt any point in the last 30 years, where as mbuk and mbr are very fashion focused.
We have 1.5m of shelving dedicated to mags, and make no more than 20quid a week gross sales (and that’s on a good week) from the non reserve titles.
Where do you work, monkeyboy?
I think that’s why What mountain bike......are probably suffering badly
I hate to be the one to break the news.....
Cranked especially is a joy to read, the paper is great quality, there’s hardly any adverts and the writing and photography is good.
I enjoyed the first issue, but quickly got bored after that. Let my subscription lapse when my card details went out of date, as I wasn't reading much of it.
I think that’s why What mountain bike……are probably suffering badly
The Joe Cocker special was their downfall.
😄
Just looked at Cyclist:
Cyclist, Dennis Publishing – Posting the shallowest decline, Cyclist dipped by 1.5% from an average circulation of 24,891 down to 24,514. Of those sales, the title averaged 12,069 paid copies and 12,259 subscription sales per issue.
It's the best of all of them in my view - though it clearly targets an aspirational market, e.g. bike reviews are regularly of £6K+ bikes, rarely anything less than £3K. They seem to get a good mix of content - a big overseas ride, a euro sportive, something on technology or a manufacturer, an interview or two and a couple of lightweight columns.
Just googled it on a whim. Is the circulation really only~10k?
Slightly surprised by how low the competition is too, MBR 17k, MBUK 28k. What MTB appeared to be ~11k before it went under
Circulation and readership are 2 seperate things. Readership assumes multiple people read the same copy of the magazine.
From this link
MBUK has a circulation of 25k
MBR has circulation of 14k according to
Yeah, thanks for that. Did anyone claim any different?
Where do you work, monkeyboy?
I've my own rural village shop/Postoffice, so not exactly magazine central. Our best mag sale is the radio times, after that country life. We sell more crossword/wordsearch mags than general interest... ..
Interesting. I’m amazed mags bring in so little cash.
Used to work for the coop, they can't wait to get rid of them. TBH the main issue is the supplier monopoly - notorious bad service, inconsistent delivery and stock supply and a law unto themselves with the newspaper vouchers. I think I lost over £1500 in newspaper sales last year due to the suppler 'loosing' the vouchers we sent back. There invoicing is like an electricity bill and now doesn't split vatable mags sales and non vatable news ..... Just gives a lump vat sum
Another example is the wc football stickers and albums. I won't sell any, yet they insisted sending me (and charging) a box of stickers every week for six weeks (I haven't sold one sticker pack). That's around £60 a week I could be spending on other things. We ended up risking it and send back the whole lot early for a refund. Luckily it was OK, but we could have lost over £300 as we didn't have an official returns sheet....
There usually a letter complaining about them every week in each trade magazine. The retail trade union is taking them to court for charging delivery cost when it snowed and they couldn't delivery. There reasoning being 'we had to pay the drivers even though they couldn't get to you'......