Future Publishing pull PX bike because they aren't buying adverts?

advertisers get priority on products selected for review, but that preference wont influence the content of the review.

A woolly get out clause about reviewing ‘class leading’ products doesn’t really cut it in terms of transparency for the readership IMO.

I think this is what I’ve been tryign to say – the reviews themselves are unbiased but the choice of which ones to publish is.

I do wonder if they’ve ever chosen not to publish a bad review of an advertisers product.

wwaswas ~ he specifically claims not

EDIT actually having reread it h doesn’t say that.

fair enough – but then we’re back to transparency. [edit] or maybe not 🙂

Maybe they could list all the products they considered when compiling the list of items actually included in a group test?

and then justify exclusions? 😉

I’d say the only contentious thing here is the review was pulled after the test, which to me is odd but perhaps it’s fairly common practice?

Not accepting something for review as the vendor doesn’t advertise and they can only review a small number of bikes makes sense to me though and not something you could really complain about (assuming you don’t believe the ‘bike of the year’ type strapline bollocks).

Everyone just needs to know that the products Future test are not necessarily the best on the market, but the best available from their advertisers
Makes WMB quite irrelevant though. Why anyone would buy it anyway is quite beyond me.

precisely, wrecker

Well, obviously not precisely, not even correct, as stated by si and ajr, FP are happy to publish reviews on items that aren’t advertised. It sounds like, in this case, there was not enough space to run all the reviews they have done, and one review has had to be cut. Someone higher up in FP has chosen to do it on the basis of advertising, and to make that fact known. Maybe not such a great idea, but these magazines rely on their advertisers for their survival.

In the vast majority of cases they obviously find it hard to get enough bikes in to test, so this seems to be a pretty unusual case. There was even a recent MBUK/WMB? review on budget bikes where they went out to Argos and bought some bikes to review. I’d be pretty happy on the basis of manufacturers and journalists feedback that the reviews are impartial, as far as personal opinion can be, but that the items reviewed are constrained by what they can get hold of and by space in the magazine.

’tis a punters’ mag no? We all started somewhere…

Wreckers statement is still correct pleaderwilliams, while FP might review non_advertiser products, they make no bones about not necessarily doing so.

£15/issue with no reduction in sales. Then there would be no ads in the mag.
£30/issue with no sales fall off and then there would be no ads on the website either.

You just told everyone your ad revenue broken down by off/on line

Well, obviously not precisely, not even correct, as stated by si and ajr, FP are happy to publish reviews on items that aren’t advertised. It sounds like, in this case, there was not enough space to run all the reviews they have done, and one review has had to be cut. Someone higher up in FP has chosen to do it on the basis of advertising, and to make that fact known. Maybe not such a great idea, but these magazines rely on their advertisers for their survival.

In the vast majority of cases they obviously find it hard to get enough bikes in to test, so this seems to be a pretty unusual case. There was even a recent MBUK/WMB? review on budget bikes where they went out to Argos and bought some bikes to review. I’d be pretty happy on the basis of manufacturers and journalists feedback that the reviews are impartial, as far as personal opinion can be, but that the items reviewed are constrained by what they can get hold of and by space in the magazine.

Here here.

I work in magazines (not Future or cycling subject matter). There are so many reasons why PX could have been dropped.

Maybe the original feature was planned as 5 pages. An extra ad gets sold (probably not in this climate) and so a page has to be dropped from the feature. Someone has to go.

Maybe they already had a heavy steel framed 29er reviewed from someone who does advertise. So what, as stated it’s a business. Doesn’t mean the one that made the cut is going to get a good review. As long as the feature gets a good coverage (price point/carbon/steel/ti etc) of what’s out there then I think it’s doing it’s job.

You cant review everything on the market in an issue. Actually what I think STW does well is the online side. The Fresh goods thing on a Friday is a great way of getting everything seen by the public, whether it’s a bling frame or some niche beer! You should see the amount of tat that gets sent in to mags by PR’s trying to gain a few column inches!

Personally if I was the publisher in question and I saw this thread and who created it, it would be bye bye On One/PX from any future reviews. Great bit of viral marketing there 😉

MM

Well, obviously not precisely, not even correct, as stated by si and ajr, FP are happy to publish reviews on items that aren’t advertised. It sounds like,

Oh, sounds like does it?

In the vast majority of cases they obviously find it hard to get enough bikes in to test, so this seems to be a pretty unusual case.

Seems to be eh?
I have a feeling that you’re not entirely impartial yourself.
The future MTB publications are the worst on the market. IDGAF if gullible idiots choose to believe what they write. STW, Shred, Dirt and even MBR wipe the floor with MBUK and WMB.

The big problem here would appear to be that WMB has always, always blown it’s own trumpet and traded on it’s impartial reviewing policy.

They frequently take one or two editorial pages to tell us exactly how impartial they are and to remind us that they review and write about the best MTB kit, regardless of price.
The inherent implication is that they seek out, test and write about the finest kit available to the public, regardless of origin or any other external factors.

Well, this is has now obviously now been exposed as a crock.

On the other hand the rather a lot smaller (in physical A5 size and readership)Shred Magazine[/url] were quite open about doing more or less just the same in a recent issue. The gist of it was ‘we are a small mag trying to make a living, forgive us if we have a better relationship with our advertisers and consequently get lots of nice stuff from them to review.’

I find that openness quite refreshing. I also don’t think this extends to giving crap products positive reviews: the things they have raved about recently genuinely are excellent, I can only guess that if an advertiser sends them something that turns out to be rubbish, they just don’t write a review for it.

You just told everyone your ad revenue broken down by off/on line

Well not really. I guessed (educational). If it was a serious analysis I’d be plugging no end of sales numbers, paper price increases plus forecast sales data into a spreadsheet – but to be honest at 10:30pm while I’m sat in bed with my phone you will perhaps forgive me for not being that motivated to do that 🙂

As for breakdown comparisons of ad sales between mag and website that’s really not top secret info, as far as we are concerned. I believe you can buy our accounts from Companies house for about a tenner.

I would also point out that the email Brant has made public no doubt had something similar to this written at the bottom of it.

‘The contents and any attachments to it include information that is private and confidential and should only be read by those persons to whom they are addressed.’

How very professional of him to tweet this on a public forum!

I believe you can buy our accounts from Companies house for about a tenner

You need better accountants if you’re disclosing that level of detail in your stat accounts!

As I’m sure others have stated (sorry but can’t be arsed to read through 4 pages of threads) – this has nothing to do with what actual verdict the bike gets at the end of the review. Its all about how many bikes they have to fit into a particular review – there’s limited space, and loads of brands. Advertisers get priority. Big whoop.
Brant should know this more than anyone – its not like he hasn’t been on both sides of the fence.

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The email I copied it from is old so it might have changed.

You need better accountants if you’re disclosing that level of detail in your stat accounts!

Go blow a tenner and find out 😉

wrecker,

First off I fail to see why you have quoted my first sentence and a small part of the second. If we are considering your original statement, that FP reviews are not the best products available, but only the best products “available from their suppliers”, then look at what si and ajr have stated, then that is clearly not the case.

Beyond that I am indeed putting forth my opinion on this issue, of which we do not know the full details. We know that the review was cut after it was completed. If not reviewing non-advertisers products was a policy, then why do the review in the first place? You don’t waste money and time reviewing and writing a piece unless you are planning to publish it, so (in my opinion) it must have been cut for other reasons. Now, the reason to remove the on-one section of the test was done on the basis of advertising, as we know.

I decided to see if this issue was mentioned on the bike radar forum, and it is, here: http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10002&t=12844562

In that thread, a WMB journo states that they generally find it hard to get hold of enough stuff to test. That is why I came to the opinion that this case is unusual, in having an over supply of bikes, and being unable to fit every test into the magazine.

I never said I was impartial, no one can be truly impartial, but this is my personal opinion, and I think its justified on the basis of evidence from those who are actually involved in the industry, as I have stated above. I can categorically state that I do not work in, or have any connection to, either the bike industry, or the publishing industry, beyond riding a bike and reading some magazines, which is what you seem to be implying?

From that Bikeradar thread

I have been with WMB for nearly 4 years, have wrote several articles

😕

Go blow a tenner and find out

Have free access so might out of curiosity now!

First off I fail to see why you have quoted my first sentence and a small part of the second. If we are considering your original statement, that FP reviews are not the best products available, but only the best products “available from their suppliers”, then look at what si and ajr have stated, then that is clearly not the case.

I don’t think you have read the whole thread; There is actual evidence that FP will review advertisers products in preference. There is no disputing this, it is not my opinion. I’m not saying they never review kit from non advertisers, but if another bike had been sent in from Trek etc, Si’s bike would have been the one cut from the review. I’d wager he understands and accepts this.
I have no problem with this, they just need to be honest about it. As such I stand by my statement.

I have read the whole thread. The whole thread began based on evidence that Future chose to give preference to items from advertisers, at least in terms of editorial space. There is no evidence that I can see that Future provide biased reviews in that editorial space. There is also evidence that Future rarely have too many products to review, which would mean that they rarely have to give preference to one product review over another. There is evidence that they are very happy to review products from companies who do not advertise with them, and to review them favourably if they are good.

We know that someone higher up in Future had decided to exclude the on-one bike on the basis of advertising. Which is not great, but understandable in a way I suppose. I personally don’t think that this means that the editorial is biased, these magazines are written by people who like bikes, that’s why they got these jobs, and I’m pretty sure that if you asked the staff at your favourite publications (which also include adverts), they would have a lot of respect for people like Steve Worland and Guy Kesteven, who do a lot of the testing for WMB and MBUK respectively.

So long as the reviews themselves are impartial, then the way they choose the products they test is less relevant, at least to me as a consumer. It’s not possible to test everything in a particular category anyway, so there always going to be products that don’t get reviewed.

pleaderwilliams – Member
So long as the reviews themselves are impartial,

The tests themselves might be impartial, but headlining a test as “The Best £1,500 Trail Bikes” would be a bit of a lie if the choice of what is included in the test is determined by advertising spend.

There is no evidence that I can see that Future provide biased reviews in that editorial space.

I’ve not at any point suggested that there was. I have not questioned the impartiality of the reviews.

There is evidence that they are very happy to review products from companies who do not advertise with them, and to review them favourably if they are good.

Again, I’ve not suggested that they don’t review products from non-advertising companies. What is in question is how they select the products, as druidh points out above.

So long as the reviews themselves are impartial, then the way they choose the products they test is less relevant, at least to me as a consumer.

They are entitled to review whatever they want to, it’s their mag. If we don’t like it, we don’t buy it. They should just be honest about how they choose i.e the selection is not necessarily based on the best product available (as my earlier post correctly stated). I’d like to see the best options in any category compared personally. This is not a personal attack on the MBUK writers, they test what they are given and I’m sure they’re nice people who love riding. This policy comes from far higher up.

Whilst I don’t think it is that fair to have excluded a product because of a lack of advertising spend, I take far more exception to the lack of professionalism shown by Brant.

How cowardly to post a personal email up on twitter. If I was FP I would never deal with OO / PX again. If business and work emails have to exist in the realm of being posted on twitter/facebook, it changes significantly what you can write. Response from FP was honest, they are a business, Brant got the hump and posted a personal email.

Now….would I buy a bike from someone if I thought an email I sent to their company might find itself on twitter or facebook for a cheap points score? No, I don’t think I would….

How cowardly to post a personal email up on twitter.

except that the bloke from Future had said he was happy for the comments to be put in the public domain?

The tests themselves might be impartial, but headlining a test as “The Best £1,500 Trail Bikes” would be a bit of a lie if the choice of what is included in the test is determined by advertising spend.

Well its a silly headline for any magazine, the only way you could claim that with complete impartiality would be to test every bike available for £1500 or less, which would be hundreds.

The choice may come down to advertising spending, at least in cases when they have more reviews than they can fit in the magazine, but as has been pointed out in this thread, there have been a lot of reviews, mostly positive, of on-one products in future publications, despite no advertising spending, so it clearly doesn’t have that much of an effect on content.

So, I take it Brant has stoppered writing his own reviews for future then?

This is the Future email footer

“This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed…”

You naughty boy, awh

I have been with WMB for nearly 4 years, have wrote several articles

First thing that jumped out at me too!

I did see the irony of what I was doing!

aracer – Member

This is the Future email footer

“This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed…”

You naughty boy, awh Looks like Brant used it 🙂

wrecker – Member

Everyone just needs to know that the products Future test are not necessarily the best on the market, but the best available from their advertisers

This is demonstrably cobblers, I’ve already given examples with numbers earlier in the thread which prove it’s not true.

Thing is, next time you read a positive review of a PX/OO product, will you believe it is truthful, or will you think it has merely been bummed up to prevent Brant from having another hissy fit?

si_progressivebikes – Member
not sure any of this means that Future are biased when reviewing, just that they choose which bikes to review based on certain criteria, i think its fair to say it works both ways.

Guess why you never see my stuff in the mags? Cos i don’t have any money

Hi Si, voice of Singletrack here with some reviews:

Chumba VF2

http://singletrackworld.com/reviews/chumba-racing-vf2/

Canfield Crampons

Reviewed in the Magazine (on two occasions as it happens) – and got a Recommended sticker.

For more, see:

http://singletrackworld.com/tag/progressive-bikes/