Ant Evans wrote:Some real crap on this thread, boys. Here's some food for thought:
* BM outsells Boxing News 3-1 and it has been that way for years.
* Fighters Only, the main MMA mag, costs £1 more than Boxing Monthly. BM outsells FO, too, by the way although as MMA becomes bigger FOs numbers go up
* BM's main selling point is the quality of the writing, which outstrips any other mag and website out there (and that's not just bias, I hear that everywhere I go, esp in US where the Ring is considered a bit fluffy even before Oscar bought it). There isn't a better team of writers anywhere in boxing, IMHO.
* There was NO chance of getting Hatton report in there due to the fact of the deadline getting moved up due to Xmas.
* BM is making money. Almost all internet sites bar MaxBoxing - are not.
* The stuff Deserter wrote was off-key. My job in the UFC is to get press coverage for our fights and fighters and getting UFC in the likes of Maxim, FHM, Nuts, Zoo and even PowerSlam is huge. The "lads mag" boom of the 1990s is over but some of these mags are still doing 200,000 350,000 readers and getting in these mags shifts tickets and merch, believe me.
Sorry Ant, but you're wide of the mark here on a number of counts:
1) The comment you attributed to me was made by someone else. I've got no issue with your role - quite the opposite in fact as I'm a UFC fan. I'm also perfectly aware of the importance of exposure in the likes of Zoo and Nuts as it's a perfect target market for the UFC brand.
2) I should point out that while I've got no axe to grind (I work in publishing, but the company I work for doesn't have anything to do with either boxing publication), I can tell you categorically that your figures are completely wrong. BN is an ABC'ed (and therefore fully audited) publication - it has a current ABC of 10,689 (average sale based on a 12-month period), which splits along the lines of 9,242 newsstand sales and 1,447 subscription sales.
BM, by contrast, is not ABC'ed (which in itself is a general industry indication that they're not keen on their figures - if they were selling three to one they'd be happy to pay £1,000 to ABC and prove it).
I also have access in my job to wholesale data so I know where BM is 'listed'. It's only real wholesale penetration is through Smiths, it doesn't even make it into important sale points like Tesco and Sainsbury to any degree worth mentioning. This in itself means it can't be selling much, as the aforementioned grocers are hugely important in shifting copies because of their footfall.
Finally, I can see exactly what they're selling through Smiths (on a daily basis to give you an idea of the level of accuracy), and while I don't wish to disclose figures publically as I appreciate there's a degree of commercial sensitivity, I can tell you honestly that they make a mockery of your claim.
3) You're probably right about BM outselling Fighters Only, as FO does dire numbers - somewhere around the 3.5k mark on the newsstand last time I checked.
4) Quality of writing - as I've previously stated, I'm a fan of a lot of the team's content. However, I think they're not necessarily best utilised in terms of publishing strategy. You also have to remember that the key to commercial success is not being liked by boxing 'insiders' (though that has a part), but in having as mass an appeal as possible.
5) Deadline - sorry, but any publisher worth his salt would have delayed the on-sale date of the magazine to be able to include the Hatton report - the lost revenues from keeping the previous issue on sale a few days longer would have been more than offset by the upswing in sales you could expect from doing a post-fight Hatton/Mayweather 'special'. It might be the case that as BM isn't part of a big publishing portfolio it can't negotiate hard with printers for extended deadlines etc, in which case I'll cut some slack, but either way the result is a massively disappointing product on the newsstand at the moment.
6) I'm sure BM is still making money, but not a great deal, and I'd be interested to see revenue/profit projections for the next few years, as I'm positive if the current strategy is maintained you'll see a gradual copy sales decline as loyal readers die off, others switch online, and, most crucially of all, it fails to attract new readers.
