OT. BN reading times.

[tonyevs]

Got my copy of BN this morning and read it in less than an hour

And thats time to make a cuppa thrown in also :(

Its getting less and less to read and just more and more pix and adverts...the last few weeks they have even had adverts for the girly chat lines....in a boxing trade paper

Its getting little more than a comic.

[jamesmcdonnell]

They need to make money somehow mate. Advertising is the holy grail, who cares what they are advertising frankly. In many ways i prefer the new format, but I think they need to make sure there's enough inside to justify the change.

[dondada]

I think it's a good mag and continue to subscribe but I can see how people - especially those who love the net - might not want to fork out for it.

I was particularly disappointed when Witter won the WBC title...and Barrera had almost all of the front cover.

[dandantheweatherman]

I ummed and ahhed for a long time before renewing my subscription this year. Obvioulsy you can find stuff out on the 'net a bit quicker, so I was hoping BN would have some decent articles in it.

Mind you, in spite of being a subscriber I've not read it for the last 10 weeks because I've been out of the country. Has there been anything good in it?

[bennie]

Got my copy of BN this morning and read it in less than an hour

And thats time to make a cuppa thrown in also :(

Its getting less and less to read and just more and more pix and adverts...the last few weeks they have even had adverts for the girly chat lines....in a boxing trade paper

Its getting little more than a comic.

You make it sound like you can produce a better boxing magazine. Why don't you?

[TerribleTerry]

Got my copy of BN this morning and read it in less than an hour

And thats time to make a cuppa thrown in also :(

Its getting less and less to read and just more and more pix and adverts...the last few weeks they have even had adverts for the girly chat lines....in a boxing trade paper

Its getting little more than a comic.

You make it sound like you can produce a better boxing magazine. Why don't you?

In terms of BN, how are they combatting/coping with the threat from the internet Bennie?

Often times reports are available the day after shows happen and the whispers section in BN is now just a re-hash of internet rumours.

I would have expected BN to put more time and effort into one off articles and interest pieces. Use the writers to produce work that is currently lacking on the net.

Having said that I havent bought an issue since the end of last season so maybe they have?..

[Autobarn]

I still get it. They usually manage to tell you something that you haven't read on the internet.

There have been some good interviews and features most weeks.

What I miss are the features by writers like Dominic Calder Smith.

That said, I'm sick to death of reading anything to do with Ali or Robinson. There was a time when they went OTT with the Ali stuff.

[Tarquin Tarpaulin IV]

In terms of BN, how are they combatting/coping with the threat from the internet Bennie?

A mag like BN survives on two things, Cover Price and Advertising. It is very difficult for a publication to develop anything more than a profile on the net for fear of reducing readership and direct income from sales.

[KO Artist]

Got my copy of BN this morning and read it in less than an hour

And thats time to make a cuppa thrown in also :(

Its getting less and less to read and just more and more pix and adverts...the last few weeks they have even had adverts for the girly chat lines....in a boxing trade paper

Its getting little more than a comic.

You make it sound like you can produce a better boxing magazine. Why don't you?

In terms of BN, how are they combatting/coping with the threat from the internet Bennie?

Often times reports are available the day after shows happen and the whispers section in BN is now just a re-hash of internet rumours.

I would have expected BN to put more time and effort into one off articles and interest pieces. Use the writers to produce work that is currently lacking on the net.

Having said that I havent bought an issue since the end of last season so maybe they have?..

I buy Boxing news regularly. Its nice to read reports sitting in the pub or in an armchair with a cup of tea, rather than sitting in front of a computer.

Even if I have seen an internet report its always nice to see another reporter's account in BN.

I must say that, in my opinion, the quality of reporting in Boxing News is much better than what you would find on most internet sites. They are crap. only one I find with good reporting is BBN, the rest of the british (and US) sites ar

I like the old timers, claude's section, the fighter interviews and all reporters are very good writers. The Connolly brothers do a particularly good job on british coverage.

Its BN for me every week, the wife picks it up every Friday, its on the table for me after a hard week.

[tonyevs]

Got my copy of BN this morning and read it in less than an hour

And thats time to make a cuppa thrown in also :(

Its getting less and less to read and just more and more pix and adverts...the last few weeks they have even had adverts for the girly chat lines....in a boxing trade paper

Its getting little more than a comic.

You make it sound like you can produce a better boxing magazine. Why don't you?

How do you get that idea?
I re-read my original post and don`t see where you make the connection

I have just written that BN over does the pix and padding...more adverts appear all the time...some what I`d never expect in a paper such as BN....the girly chat line ones...but obviously BN must be going somewhat down market in the choice of adverts

I agree that they do have THE best writers...Claude Abrams and Zachary Levin are excellent....Levin reminds me so much of a modern Nat Fleischer in his style...this alone is the main reason I continue to get the paper.

But my point is....repeat it cos somebody isn`t reading properly ....they are putting too much pix and padding in.

BN should be about boxing news....not boxing pictures....OK they are nowadays old with the news because of the internet, but that does not excuse them padding out....count the space they take up with padding(pix,adverts) and 48pages gets down to 24pages...take out the amateurs and old timers.... :(

[Andy Mac]

I still get it. They usually manage to tell you something that you haven't read on the internet.

There have been some good interviews and features most weeks.

What I miss are the features by writers like Dominic Calder Smith.

That said, I'm sick to death of reading anything to do with Ali or Robinson. There was a time when they went OTT with the Ali stuff.

I suppose you could say the reason people tend to go OTT with Ali is because he transcended the sport which made him famous, and for the right reasons. As opposed to say Tyson that possibly did it but for the wrong reasons.

[Old bones Ian]

I still get BN every week, i like the new fitness articles run recently, about nutrition and weight training in boxing.
Also you get better coverage of the small hall boxing events , usually you would only get the results on most internet sites.

[Loynesy]

I'm with KO Artist on that one. So much nicer to read a magazine, with a quiet pint in the local rather than in front of a computer screen.

[Old bones Ian]

I'm with KO Artist on that one. So much nicer to read a magazine, with a quiet pint in the local rather than in front of a computer screen.

plus you don't look like a billy no mates then.

[Ulysses]

But my point is....repeat it cos somebody isn`t reading properly ....they are putting too much pix and padding in.

BN should be about boxing news....not boxing pictures....OK they are nowadays old with the news because of the internet, but that does not excuse them padding out....count the space they take up with padding(pix,adverts) and 48pages gets down to 24pages...take out the amateurs and old timers.... :(

There are some excellent boxing photographers around... Ed Mulholland, Steve Marcus. Tom Casino, Tom Hogan, Chris Farina, Chris Cozzone, Javiel Centeno, Marcus Lopez, Paul Gallegos etc etc

Some people appreciate a good quality photograph, you can't please everyone but the has to be a medium.

Take out the amateurs? there you have the future of the sport, for anyone who has boxed, to see your name in print is a wonderful feeling.

[tonyevs]

I didn`t mean take out the amateurs...just that alot of people don`t read those pages...I myself find the amateur section very badly organised and presented, and the old timers even less of interest...

Thats it I have convinced myself not to get it again...I cancelled my subscription some time ago but most weeks picked a copy up from the newsagents...kind of weened myself off it.

[dondada]

I buy Boxing news regularly. Its nice to read reports sitting in the pub or in an armchair with a cup of tea, rather than sitting in front of a computer.

The net should complement printed text I think rather than replace it - I still like to have the magazines too.

[jamesmcdonnell]

Got my copy of BN this morning and read it in less than an hour

And thats time to make a cuppa thrown in also :(

Its getting less and less to read and just more and more pix and adverts...the last few weeks they have even had adverts for the girly chat lines....in a boxing trade paper

Its getting little more than a comic.

You make it sound like you can produce a better boxing magazine. Why don't you?

How do you get that idea?
I re-read my original post and don`t see where you make the connection

I have just written that BN over does the pix and padding...more adverts appear all the time...some what I`d never expect in a paper such as BN....the girly chat line ones...but obviously BN must be going somewhat down market in the choice of adverts

I agree that they do have THE best writers...Claude Abrams and Zachary Levin are excellent....Levin reminds me so much of a modern Nat Fleischer in his style...this alone is the main reason I continue to get the paper.

But my point is....repeat it cos somebody isn`t reading properly ....they are putting too much pix and padding in.

BN should be about boxing news....not boxing pictures....OK they are nowadays old with the news because of the internet, but that does not excuse them padding out....count the space they take up with padding(pix,adverts) and 48pages gets down to 24pages...take out the amateurs and old timers.... :(

People are not going to buy a magazine which has few pictures these days, when they can get reports and results almost instantaneously on the net, christ you can even get round by round reports on the net these days. Magazines need to differentiate themselves with original content, and photographs are a good way of doing this. As for advertising, that is the primary source of profit for all magazines.

[DavidPayne]

The answer is to completely reverse their current style/print quality etc direction or policy.

To be honest, in my opinion, they're trying to serve a weekly audience with a monthly product. Style wise, I think they've got it all wrong.

Its about news and opinion, not whether it looks good on the coffee table. Boxing isn't urban chic, its spit, sawdust, leather and toil.

Print boxing news on newspaper pulp? Get the print costs down, get the price down and try and lure a larger audience because the hardcore fans wil buy it regardless.

Focus on the quality of reports, the fact every undercard fight is recorded meaningfully, and host more considered but opinionated pieces.

Get beneath the sport, report from offices, the changing rooms, the sanctioning bodies, help boxing fans understand the sport, its politics and driving forces by illuminating the shadows.

I dont care about whether I can put the Boxing News in binders, Idont care if the magazine doesn't look as sophisticated as GQ, I'm a boxing fan not a Art Critic.

I've got copies of Boxing News from the 60's, with 'Enry on the front and SRR etc. I preferred THAT format, print quality, to the current one.

I've a great deal of respect for CA and I think some of the other contributors report well too; I just think they've followed the obvious 'me too' route in terms of style.

I think they should have turned weakness into advantage and moved further away from the colour, gloss model and more closely reflected the roots and soul of the sport.

I think the current cover price is unacceptable for a weekly publication and I think that situation could be rectified and more readership earned or reclaimed.

Just my observations.

[jamesmcdonnell]

Some interesting points dave, but I think your contradicting yourself in places, and also failing to understand Boxing New's dillema.

Boxing is not a mainstream sport any more, and the estab;lished fanbase is small and possibly shrinking as it is. They are also suffering in that one of the core reasons for buying the magazine, which was to get all the news every week from around the UK is being eaten away by the growth of internet sites and the increasing quality and depth of internet coverage.

Boxing News is also part of a huge company which owns dozens of magazines, and I am sure they have to toe the line drawn for them by their scottish paymasters. I am unsure who took the decision to change the format of the magazine, but I am sure it was prompted by the gradual decline in sales figures for the magazine over the last decade.

It's all well and good saying that you could bring costs down by printing it on pulp, but it's going to be very hard to attract the requisite advertising to something which looks outmoded and is covering a sport which is frankly considered a fringe interest outside of it's fanbase.

I think this makes it very difficult for them to please everyone. Their existing readership might be happy for them to produce a bald, factual, newspaper style read, with much more content and less style, but how then do they attract the younger and increasingly aesthetically demanding demographic coming through.

Look at the successful magazine formats for other sports, they all look like glossy lads mags these days, because this is what the readership expects.

I think the other problem for Boxing News is that they have a small staff who are also responsible for producing the layout as well as the editoriall, and they don't have a huge budget to pay staff for all of this more underground coverage that you think would benefit the magazine.

Internet websites prosper because they pay their writers little or nothing generally speaking, and also because they charge little or nothing for their services and they can have their content constantly updated and have an army of writers providing much of their content without even paying for offices.

I see what you are saying about the format being more suitable for a monthly, but I think the route you are suggesting for their content would see the plug pulled on the magazine altogether by their owners in 5 years or less.

[DK2112]

I was one of the many people who were annoyed about the previous BN format with the constant ripping of pages, some weeks you got it out of the packaging when it arrived and it literally fell to pieces in your hands (for subscribers). But since the format changed to A4 and glossy, in my opinion the writing quality has gone gradually downhill and is still doing so.

In this week's I enjoyed the article by Calder-Smith on the 3 heavyweight title contenders in the coming weeks. But I read it in 2 minutes flat. Who remembers the huge articles they used to do in the old format that would take ages to read? For example, the one with the state of the 'current' heavyweight division as it was then in 2004, it was between 2 and 3 A3 sheets long. And mainly words, with small fighter photos.

How about the one about Ricky Hatton's potential opponents after the Kostya Tszyu fight? That was massive too. This kind of stuff was value for money. What we are getting right now is not value for money. It's VERY vague fight reports in the main, hardly any decent articles which were promised when the change came into place, and they have just padded it out with crap like adverts and loads of pictures.

Let's be honest here, probably 1% of the readers actually read that stupid Old Timers page, and anyone who isn't an amateur boxer would not miss the amateur pages. They need to do what they used to do, put more effort into the previews and reports (especially the big fights) and cut the rubbish out. In other words go back to how it was. It was never perfect but in my opinion it's getting worse and worse week by week. How many times do they need to ask you to subscribe? How many times do they need to ask you to buy Boxing heroes? I advise you all to go back and look at the BN editions I spoke about with those big articles in and see just how bad it is now compared to then. I think I'd take the paper shredding in my hands to get back the old days of what was a value for money publication to read.

Saying all that, I will always subscribe to it because I know I'd miss it. I just wish they would improve it a bit.

[DavidPayne]

Interesting point James.

Particularly about the need to attract younger readers and the need for design etc.

However, the real problem of course is harder to resolve. It's not the job of Boxing News to attract people to the sport - thats the sports job and I have to say - largely its failing miserably to regulate, control and promote itself effectively.

To contradict that though, 22,000 people bought tickets every 3 months for Hatton, 6,000 for Frochy - sometimes, same for Calzaghe.

What's the readership of BN?

[Deserter]

In terms of BN, how are they combatting/coping with the threat from the internet Bennie?

A mag like BN survives on two things, Cover Price and Advertising. It is very difficult for a publication to develop anything more than a profile on the net for fear of reducing readership and direct income from sales.

Not strictly true. There are now plenty of magazines working out how to monetise their web presence without damaging the core print brand - the key is to ensure you're offering a web proposition that doesn't cannibalise e.g. fight reports appearing immediately after the event, and the weekly publication having a greater level of analysis, comprehensive post-fight interviews etc.

[Deserter]

As for advertising, that is the primary source of profit for all magazines.

Not true at all I'm afraid. Mags like Vogue and GQ take the majority of their revenues from advertising, but there are plenty of other mags where the main source of revenue derives from copy sales (the extreme example are kids' mags, where around 85-90% of the revenue comes from sales).
In the case of BN, I'm sure you'll find the revenue split is something in the region of 70%-30% in favour of copy sales rev over advertising - due not only to the relatively few number of advertisers, but also the fact that such niche advertisers don't have big budgets so as a publisher you can't generate a high yield.

[jamesmcdonnell]

Interesting point James.

Particularly about the need to attract younger readers and the need for design etc.

However, the real problem of course is harder to resolve. It's not the job of Boxing News to attract people to the sport - thats the sports job and I have to say - largely its failing miserably to regulate, control and promote itself effectively.

To contradict that though, 22,000 people bought tickets every 3 months for Hatton, 6,000 for Frochy - sometimes, same for Calzaghe.

What's the readership of BN?

Dave, those are TINY numbers though, 66,000 a year in ticket sales, christ, compare that to say Football and you can see how small boxing is by comparison. Back in the 1980's football was in big trouble, and whilst it has always been far bigger than boxing, it was on the verge of terminal decline due to TV companies not wanting to be associated with it, until the rebranding took place with the premiership and all seater stadiums etc. Look at how it has transformed the fortunes of everyone involved, but it took a national body to institute this.

Boxing suffers from having individual promoters and nobody overseeing the regulation of the sport as a whole, thus there is no grand strategy in place of course.

Yes, I agree it is not Boxing News' job to promote the sport, but they have to try and get new readership from somewhere.

Not sure what the readership is exactly now. Not too hard to find out. I think it's fair to see that the decline in readership mirrors a general decline in the positioning of the sport.