Do you think boxing news magazine will still be around in 5 years time?

[Bricks]

For the first time ever, and I mean ever, I prefer Boxing Monthly to Boxing News. Part of that is that with the Internet we no longer need to wait for results, but BN is so bitty with too many distracting little articles about tweets, opinions and blah blah... But very little meat. I realise one has to move with the times but I think BN went too far in the 'yute' type approach.

All the old school boxing trade people I know barely read it.... And if numbers are up then they are doing the right thing from a business sense.... But I would like to see more quality articles. It's all a bit too easy to skip over and the longer articles lack depth.

I hope matt Christie will change things a little. Tris Dixon did modernise the publication, but I believe he went too far, and essentially turned the mag into a flimsy teenage girl's publication....

All true all true.its all too titty bitty.

Right now i cant get even get a decent read while having a,shhiter

[veriton]

I hope so, but I also hope it reverts back to the old "trade paper" format. Anyone else agree?

I agree, Ade though this years annual is excellent.

some really good looking back at biggest nights (and not just the usual suspects)..but wasn't that froch interview published before in the weekly mag? im sure ive read that before...

[Cazelo]

They do the fighting fit piece in boxing news. They should accumulate it all in to one year end annual go to mag for fighters

[Bricks]

.....

[dookus]

I dont think the net is necessarily the death of all print media, even where it's news-based. Private Eye, for example, has minimal web presence but has never been stronger-selling. It's about offering something better and more in depth.

Where print media can't compete nowadays is on speed, raw volume of results etc - but there's no reason why it can't compete on the high end stuff.

[Old bones Ian]

I do think there's room for improvement in BN, i'm more of the old school, so less tweets etc.
But seeing as its survived this recession and its still going i hope to see it in 5 years.

Talking of mags, i once caught the train from Southampton and legged it in to WHS and just grabbed a mag in the Lads mags section, jumped on the train, and on the carriage was a load of footy fans half cut, i thought not to draw attention to myself and with no seats i opened my mag to discover i had brought a copy of Atitude. Much to the amusement of said footy fans! that was a long train journey.

[reggaereggae]

I do think there's room for improvement in BN, i'm more of the old school, so less tweets etc.
But seeing as its survived this recession and its still going i hope to see it in 5 years.

Talking of mags, i once caught the train from Southampton and legged it in to WHS and just grabbed a mag in the Lads mags section, jumped on the train, and on the carriage was a load of footy fans half cut, i thought not to draw attention to myself and with no seats i opened my mag to discover i had brought a copy of Atitude. Much to the amusement of said footy fans! that was a long train journey.

is that the story you told your wife when she discovered it in your overnight bag?!

[Floyd the snake]

No fight report from Lee / Saunders card plus another 5 or 6 shows before christmas very poor show from the supposed trade mag !

[IRLangmaid25]

I still think it will be around as to some extent it is the sports main 'trade sheet' and it is a niche magazine covering a particular industry similar to Decanter for the Wine Trade so there will be people still buying it to know what it is happening both domestic and overseas.

[dalcumly]

I'll draw an analogy. All the polling companies predicted that at the General Election last year that there would either be a hung parliament, or a labour victory. They ALL got it wrong, and this week they have produced their reasons why this happened. They concentrated too much on polling labour supporters ( which I think is bizarre) and over emphasized their responses from young to the detriment of the older voters.

My analogy is this - well informed media people on this forum continually predict that the future of paper news journals is in terminal decline. That, I think is based on their view of the world , and probably their age. If you live and work in an environment of iphones, ipads, PCs, etc etc and all your friends are similarly inclined then you cannot help but think that is the ONLY way forward. Much like the pollsters - they might actually be wrong .

I don't know anyone from my generation who doesn't read a newspaper every day. They do use their IT 'thingmies' but not at the exclusion of the printed media.

I will predict that since the promotion of Matt Christie to Editor, and a partial return of the magazine to a more traditional format ( being a British boxing journal !! ) sales will have increased. And can I take this opportunity to say , what a bargain it is, if you actually subscribe. Big savings to be had if you like to read it most weeks.

[dbflex]

No fight report from Lee / Saunders card plus another 5 or 6 shows before christmas very poor show from the supposed trade mag !

Of course there was a Lee-Saunders card report. Are you simply making stuff up?

[veriton]

my boxing news sub just ran out...i renewed boxing monthly, even went two years but think im going to get the digital download of boxing news for six months instead of the print version. i used to store all my old mags but ive got so many now i just started chucking them out after i read them. i had the digital before and you get it a bit sooner too. its also quite a bit cheaper which works for me at this time of year.

the haye show report was top drawer and i really like the seven days stuff they put in now rather than that fluffy gubbins about what they all think. i want informed analysis not pub chat.

and i know they are all london boys but i wish they would point out that some districts are in london. for years i thought lenny daws was scottish, cos morden sounds like a jock name. i only just found out it was a district in london cos someone got murdered there the other day and it was in the national news! mr flexen is a beauty for this, like an interview with degale in harlsden making out it was some special universe...it's just london mate to us northen monkeys..

[dbflex]

my boxing news sub just ran out...i renewed boxing monthly, even went two years but think im going to get the digital download of boxing news for six months instead of the print version. i used to store all my old mags but ive got so many now i just started chucking them out after i read them. i had the digital before and you get it a bit sooner too. its also quite a bit cheaper which works for me at this time of year.

the haye show report was top drawer and i really like the seven days stuff they put in now rather than that fluffy gubbins about what they all think. i want informed analysis not pub chat.

and i know they are all london boys but i wish they would point out that some districts are in london. for years i thought lenny daws was scottish, cos morden sounds like a jock name. i only just found out it was a district in london cos someone got murdered there the other day and it was in the national news! mr flexen is a beauty for this, like an interview with degale in harlsden making out it was some special universe...it's just london mate to us northen monkeys..

Lol pretty sure I called it a "London borough" in the first paragraph. Which was incorrect, incidentally, as it is an area within the borough of Brent.

[Deserter]

Would like to hear Deserters thoughts on this given recent developments across all print media

Sorry fella, missed this completely! The sad reality is that magazines will continue to close over the next few years. It's very difficult to talk about BN specifically, as there are so many variables that we're not privvy to, ranging whether its owner, Newsquest, sees it as peripheral to its main business focus, through to distribution issues - the challenge of remaining 'listed' in key outlets to ensure visibility etc. One thing I can say with conviction is that digital mags were seen as the potential saviours of publishing, but the reality is that consumption rates have fallen well below what was hoped for.
On the positive side, BN has a targeted, focused audience and in relative terms a small costbase. If you asked me my honest verdict I'd guess that BN will still be around in print format, but I'd make two predictions:
1) Newsquest will sell the title: this could be to a smaller publishing house or, in worst case scenario, it's unlikely but not impossible to envisage someone like Hearn snapping it up and using the brand as a promotional vehicle for his stable a la Oscar and the ring. In best case scenario I'd love to see the equivalent of a management buy-out as it's got such a great, dedicated team, but funding would obviously be an issue and while it could operate without Newsquest's overheads, you'd also lose the benefits of being part of a bigger set-up e.g. cost efficiencies when it comes to printing and production.
2) The print magazine will be an increasingly smaller part of the overall brand and as such I wouldn't be surprised if its publishing frequency changed.

I've got no insider knowledge at all, so both constitute nothing more than informed guesswork though

[Deserter]

I'll draw an analogy. All the polling companies predicted that at the General Election last year that there would either be a hung parliament, or a labour victory. They ALL got it wrong, and this week they have produced their reasons why this happened. They concentrated too much on polling labour supporters ( which I think is bizarre) and over emphasized their responses from young to the detriment of the older voters.

My analogy is this - well informed media people on this forum continually predict that the future of paper news journals is in terminal decline. That, I think is based on their view of the world , and probably their age. If you live and work in an environment of iphones, ipads, PCs, etc etc and all your friends are similarly inclined then you cannot help but think that is the ONLY way forward. Much like the pollsters - they might actually be wrong .

I don't know anyone from my generation who doesn't read a newspaper every day. They do use their IT 'thingmies' but not at the exclusion of the printed media.

I will predict that since the promotion of Matt Christie to Editor, and a partial return of the magazine to a more traditional format ( being a British boxing journal !! ) sales will have increased. And can I take this opportunity to say , what a bargain it is, if you actually subscribe. Big savings to be had if you like to read it most weeks.

It's a terrible analogy, as the huge bit you're missing is that the 'well informed media people' are basing future predictions on facts - when I was in publishing we could see year-on-year significant declines in both circulations and advertising revenues on a number of key titles. Nothing to do with view of the world or age, just business fundamentals. Take a publication like Official Playstation - towards the end of the 90s that was selling nearly half a million copies a month. Now it's barely over 20,000. The Sun's circulation has fallen by more than 40% in recent years to cite a newspaper example. Surely even you can see that at a certain point it becomes commercially unviable to continue to publish. Digital forces at work have forced massive changes across a number of industries - from music and publishing through to travel and even taxis (Uber). It's time you woke up and smelled the coffee.

[veriton]

commercially unviable, or just not attractive to hedge funds and parasitic money men who are only interested in profits? if that playstation mag is doing 20k a month then it surely makes money. maybe it will go full circle and go back to publications being owned by people who cared about them, and not faceless corporate types.

[Deserter]

commercially unviable, or just not attractive to hedge funds and parasitic money men who are only interested in profits? if that playstation mag is doing 20k a month then it surely makes money. maybe it will go full circle and go back to publications being owned by people who cared about them, and not faceless corporate types.

I think that accusation could be levelled against some of the larger newspaper operators who are squeezing as much margin as possible from what they perceive to be a dying business, but if you take a company like Future (which publishes Official PlayStation), when I was there it was packed top to bottom with people who genuinely loved magazines and cared passionately about the business. OP' is the perfect example of a publication that isn't being run into the ground by 'parasitic money men' but by the reality of the modern day consumer - 10 years ago you were willing to wait for your monthly fix and get exclusive news and screenshots you couldn't get anywhere else, but why would you do that now when you can access video trailers etc through PlayStation network and get content 24/7 rather than once a month?
Just because a mag still sells 20k doesn't guarantee its profitability - both your major revenue streams declining significantly (circulation and advertising) means there's massive pressure on your cost base and you're faced with tough decisions regarding everything from paper costs through to number of team members... on which note, don't forget it's those revenues that fund the salaries of the editorial teams.
The bottom line is that in my experience there are very few magazine companies that are owned by the caricatures you've presented and far more that are owned and run by people who care about their portfolios greatly. I think the regional newspaper industry has needlessly inflicted a lot of damage on itself through a 'slash and burn' approach (including, ironically, Newsquest, the owner of Boxing News), but I haven't seen much evidence of this elsewhere.

[veriton]

these figures are probably hopelessly out but as a rough guess, let's say 20,000 circulation for official playstation at 5 quid a pop in the shops. let's say the people who make the mag get half of that after distribution, printing is taken out. so the owners get 50k a month out of it. then there is the (dwindling) advertising print revunue to add on top.

ill be generous and say editorial staff are on 30k a year so 2.5k a month. 10 staff, some support staff and you're still making money. that's being commericially viable in any business.

the big question to me is...how much of the turnover is being focused on digital output and how much does that return in terms of revenue?!?!? on top of that, how much does the digital output, which is usually given away for free, put increasing pressure on the print sales.

if mcdonalds set up a table outside its restaurants full of free burgers, then asked people if they fancied to go inside and pay for the exact same meal then it would be seen as suicidal business practice. yet that's what is happening in print thanks to companies following the digital path.

digital can only survive with print to feed off, it doesnt work the other way around.

[Deserter]

these figures are probably hopelessly out but as a rough guess, let's say 20,000 circulation for official playstation at 5 quid a pop in the shops. let's say the people who make the mag get half of that after distribution, printing is taken out. so the owners get 50k a month out of it. then there is the (dwindling) advertising print revunue to add on top.

ill be generous and say editorial staff are on 30k a year so 2.5k a month. 10 staff, some support staff and you're still making money. that's being commericially viable in any business.

the big question to me is...how much of the turnover is being focused on digital output and how much does that return in terms of revenue?!?!? on top of that, how much does the digital output, which is usually given away for free, put increasing pressure on the print sales.

if mcdonalds set up a table outside its restaurants full of free burgers, then asked people if they fancied to go inside and pay for the exact same meal then it would be seen as suicidal business practice. yet that's what is happening in print thanks to companies following the digital path.

digital can only survive with print to feed off, it doesnt work the other way around.

Fella, the difference between is is that you're speculating on a lot of those numbers and I'm not (though my knowledge is in part historical). I don't understand why it's an argument you want to pick? You think I take any pleasure at all in saying this stuff- some of my good mates still work on or run mags like that and believe me they are trying to do everything they can - and certainly more effectively than someone conjuring up numbers off the back of a fag packet.
Of course, Future will have taken steps in a bid to try to ensure profitability at that copy sale level, but you're talking as if that figure is set in stone when in fact it's more akin to a death spiral - falling copy sales mean everything from continuing falls in ad revenues through to increasing problems getting listed in the supermarkets (and given that these days that's where a disproportionate number of your magazines are sold, you lose that visibility and it's not rocket science to work out what kind of death knell that can sound for your sales).

[dalcumly]

Deserter has the expertise from his previous experience in the magazine industry ,so I can't challenge him on his theory regarding that industry overall.
But Deserter is using the same thought processes used by the Polling companies last year. Their predictions were based on 'facts' their industry had obtained. They were wrong, because they thought they could speak for the silent majority, who weren't included in those 'facts'. I can't recall the last time a national newspaper folded. I do remember small newspapers like TODAY going under but that was because they couldn't compete. News of the World went for other reasons.

Boxing fans will continue to buy the hardcopy of the Boxing News if they like the content, and I predict sales will increase, and Deserter, only time will tell if you are correct, or me.

I saw a great article in a newspaper today ( Sunday morning, what will most people in Britain be doing at this time?) Its another analogy. In politics , extremists shout and ridicule people who don't share their views. Reasonable debate is squashed. So, the silent majority don't engage, but don't change their views either ,and at election time -they vote. And low and behold, the extremists have no idea why the lost !!

The Boxing News is NOT a Playstation magazine. It was in existence for 70 years before Playstation was invented !!! The Playstation magazine was a flash in the pan - it was never going to survive at those levels because it was a gimmick. Trust me, the sales of Boxing News will follow the popularity of boxing. It's sales will go up and down based on that alone.

[Deserter]

I can't recall the last time a national newspaper folded. I do remember small newspapers like TODAY going under but that was because they couldn't compete. News of the World went for other reasons.

Stop focusing on the event and instead on the process. To talk about nationals not folding as if that's proof print isn't suffering is ridiculous. For starters, some of them are run at a huge loss because the proprietors either want the prestige and influence that a paper 'buys' (The Times) or because they are protected by a trust (The Guardian). The fact is that the sales of national newspapers have fallen dramatically in recent years and all the indicators are that this will continue.

Content will always be desired, what is changing dramatically is the way people choose to consume that content. Print will still have a place (look at the way people still choose to consume music through vinyl and CDs), but it is now just one part of a broader mix. People on this forum are about as hardcore as it gets, and yet I guarantee there will be members who have stopped buying BN because they've chosen to access boxing-related content through different means. It's that type of slippage that really hurts businesses - you don't need to lose all your readers, just enough to place the business model in jeopardy.

[CharlesListon]

Boxing News has improved since Matt Christie took over the reigns and it's getting back to where it was under Claude. There has been a reduction in some of the fitness and nutrition pieces, which for me took up space that could have been devoted to British boxing. I do miss Bob Mee's column, I felt he had a very good insight and knows how to write.

The amateur section is also very good, with a good mix of British and International information.

If you take out a subscription you get some really good deals and a freebie. Mine is delivered without fail every Thursday morning. Can't fault it.

It will still be here in five years time because there are enough of us that like to read about British boxing,in a traditional format on a weekly basis.

It's natural that with technological advancement you pretty much get breaking news 24/7, which makes the urgency of getting hold of your copy less vital. But, in terms of interviews and reports, I want to read a hard-copy, well written piece from an independent journo, rather than the fan-boy tripe you often find online.

[Bodyshot3]

Stop focusing on the event and instead on the process. To talk about nationals not folding as if that's proof print isn't suffering is ridiculous. For starters, some of them are run at a huge loss because the proprietors either want the prestige and influence that a paper 'buys' (The Times) or because they are protected by a trust (The Guardian). The fact is that the sales of national newspapers have fallen dramatically in recent years and all the indicators are that this will continue.

Content will always be desired, what is changing dramatically is the way people choose to consume that content. Print will still have a place (look at the way people still choose to consume music through vinyl and CDs), but it is now just one part of a broader mix. People on this forum are about as hardcore as it gets, and yet I guarantee there will be members who have stopped buying BN because they've chosen to access boxing-related content through different means. It's that type of slippage that really hurts businesses - you don't need to lose all your readers, just enough to place the business model in jeopardy.

Spot on

But I'd suggest that BN is (thankfully) in now in a good place....the niche weekly magazine, with a lean editorial team and supported by freelancers can survive as long as the content remains significantly better than most free on-line content. Quality of writing, quality of contacts and taking a credible and interesting editorial line is crucial. Lose that content edge and and you are quickly in the brown stuff.

BN is now a very stripped-down outfit but the writing has not suffered; so you have a 'must read' that is also not killing the publisher financially.
I should think their workload requires a serious love of the sport + lots of Red Bull but that goes with the territory on print mags these days...whether it is BN or Bowls Weekly

[Bricks]

All of the long running sports magazines that have survived ,whether its world soccer,muscular development,wisden....have done so by focusing on quality in depth interviews and opinion as well as news.

The lengthy in depth interview sells it for me. I can just get news on the net.

Boxing news became so tit bitty nothing in depth to read.they need to have more lengthy interviews with fighters of yesteryear. That tris dixon piece on meeting jimmy young from about 11 years ago was a masterpiece ....thats exactly the kind of thing we need more of.

[Flump]

All of the long running sports magazines that have survived ,whether its world soccer,muscular development,wisden....have done so by focusing on quality in depth interviews and opinion as well as news.

The lengthy in depth interview sells it for me. I can just get news on the net.

Boxing news became so tit bitty nothing in depth to read.they need to have more lengthy interviews with fighters of yesteryear. That tris dixon piece on meeting jimmy young from about 11 years ago was a masterpiece ....thats exactly the kind of thing we need more of.

This. The Jimmy Young bit was recounted in his excellent book too.

And nice to see Matt Christie's open letter to the WBA today. Shades of Harry Mullan, very good to see and absolutely right.