{"id":9268,"date":"2013-07-25T19:07:14","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T19:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/?p=9268"},"modified":"2021-01-19T14:04:55","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T14:04:55","slug":"outdoor-magazines-have-they-had-their-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/outdoor-magazines-have-they-had-their-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Outdoor Magazines, have they had their day?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"viewpoint\"In his monthly Viewpoint column, outdoors writer, broadcaster and mountain walker Cameron McNeish asks where Outdoor magazines can survive.<\/em><\/p>\n

A magazine dropped through my letterbox the other day. After a cursory glance at the front cover I put it on top of a pile of other outdoor mags that I subscribe to.<\/p>\n

I must admit I laid it on the magazine pile with something of a guilty conscience and promised myself, for the umpteenth time, that at some point I would try and get round to reading them all. But do you know what? I probably won\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Now this might sound strange coming from someone with a background in magazines like my own. I started my own outdoor magazine, Footloose, in 1981 and thereafter edited Climber Magazine and The Great Outdoors (TGO) Magazine for 25 years. I still edit two outdoor magazines \u2013 Scottish Walks and Scottish Cycling, although both these titles are slightly different models of magazine publishing.<\/p>\n

So why does someone with a long-term background in outdoor magazine publishing suddenly become bored with them? Probably for the same reason I haven\u2019t bought a newspaper in a couple of years. I now get all the information, news and inspiration I need, things that I used to get from papers and magazines, from the Internet.<\/p>\n

Websites like this one, social media and a handful of blogs serve my purposes these days, and they are all free. You also don\u2019t need to chop down an Amazonian rain forest to provide the paper\u2026<\/p>\n

At this point let me add a small addendum.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m now fairly long in the tooth when it comes to hill walking and backpacking and while I\u2019m always happy and eager to learn new skills most of the \u2018beginner\u2019 stuff I read in the magazines doesn\u2019t really interest me any more.<\/p>\n

Neither do walking routes in most of England and Wales. I\u2019ve nothing against walking south of the Scottish border and I\u2019m passionately fond of the Lake District but I just don\u2019t get the chance to go there very often.<\/p>\n

I have all the gear I need to last me into my dotage so I\u2019m not tempted by gear reviews, and I find that those issues that do interest me, largely conservation politics, are not covered by the current crop of walking and climbing magazines. It would appear controversy isn\u2019t allowed any more\u2026<\/p>\n

\"magazines\"<\/a>As I read this over I\u2019m aware much of what I\u2019ve written sounds like the rant of an old fart ex-editor who isn\u2019t comfortable with change, and there may be an element of truth in that, so I\u2019m prepared to accept that many folk, particularly those who are new to outdoor activities like climbing or hillwalking, may well enthusiastically devour everything that\u2019s published in today\u2019s outdoor titles. I was like that myself once, but sadly, circulation figures would suggest that more and more of us are abandoning print magazines (and newspapers) and now favour other sources of information.<\/p>\n

Before I try and identify why that\u2019s the case let me say a quick word about circulations. Only three titles in the UK, in the outdoors sector of climbing and walking, are Audit Bureau of Circulation audited. Trail, Country Walking and The Great Outdoors publish their audited circulation figures, the others don\u2019t. Why? Because they sell very few copies.<\/p>\n

Most magazine publishers get regular retail analysis from their distributers and that includes sales in all the big retail chains. It becomes very clear which magazines sell copies and which ones don\u2019t. Unsurprisingly, the big three walking titles are the only ones with reasonable figures.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately those figures are dropping, substantially in the case of Trail and CW and less so with The Great Outdoors, but that magazine starts from a much smaller circulation base anyway.<\/p>\n

With circulation figures falling like leaves from an autumn tree an interesting trend is beginning to appear. Major gear manufacturers and retailers appear to be courting bloggers and website owners, rather than print journalists.<\/p>\n

Last summer WL Gore, makers of Gore-Tex fabrics, took a whole bunch of bloggers to Switzerland, courted them, wine and dined them and kitted them out in new gear, all for free.<\/p>\n

Also, PR companies regularly approach the owners of popular websites promising special deals for their readers with their clients, who tend to be outdoor retailers and manufacturers. Do these marketing professionals know something the rest of us don\u2019t?<\/p>\n

I suspect they might. Every day more and more outdoor folk are blogging, and some of them do it extremely well. Google Analytics suggest that many of them are getting very large viewing figures, or Unique Users, to use the Internet jargon.<\/p>\n

There are some excellent websites too, and you can tailor social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to bring you the kind of information you particularly want to read.<\/p>\n

I find Twitter to be particularly useful, especially when it comes to issues like windfarm planning proposals and the like and there are some very good blogs out there too, produced by some talented writers. There are perhaps half a dozen that I look at regularly but for the moment I\u2019ll name three of them.<\/p>\n

Ed Douglas\u2019 website, www.calmandfearless.com<\/a> is a kind of outdoor arts and literary chronicle, and offers an antidote to the dwindling amount of column inches that magazines offer for reviewing outdoor books, films and photography.<\/p>\n

Andy Howell\u2019s \u201cMust Be This Way\u2026\u201d<\/a> trekking and backpacking pages are well researched, well written and refreshingly honest. So too is John Appleby\u2019s Footless Crow<\/a> although it\u2019s more climbing oriented.<\/p>\n

What I particularly like about these three blogs is that they are strong on opinion, something that tends to be lacking from our walking and climbing magazines nowadays. I don\u2019t always agree with the opinions offered on these blogs, but that\u2019s no bad thing. It\u2019s always good to have my prejudices challenged! It makes me think, and weigh up the arguments in a more informed way.<\/p>\n

So, do outdoor magazines have a future? I think they probably do, but in a much more limited way than in the past. I\u2019ve no doubt circulations will continue to fall and since all our outdoor titles are owned by fairly large publishing companies it\u2019s only a matter of time before the number-crunchers start querying the financial returns.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the vital factor. Money. Magazines have to make a profit, and few magazine publishers are willing to spend massive amounts on websites unless they can make money from them. At the moment the public has become used to getting information from websites for nothing \u2013 few people react well to having to pay for online material.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also becoming increasingly difficult for outdoor magazines, with their limited circulation figures, to get onto the shelves of the major retailers. Indeed, some of those retailers now charge for shelf space – more expenditure for hard-pressed publishers.<\/p>\n

Interestingly enough, the two magazines I now look after, Scottish Walks and Scottish Cycling are free. With a distribution of 70,000 both titles reach a far bigger audience than any of the pay-for magazines, and this is what attracts advertisers. It\u2019s a publishing model that appears to work \u2013 look at the success of free newspapers like Metro. It\u2019s a blueprint that could perhaps work for other outdoor titles?<\/p>\n

Another idea that could work is for publishers to create better websites in partnership with subscription-only print titles. Cut out the middle-men \u2013 the distributors and the increasingly expensive High Street newsagent chains. The problem is that the website content should differ from the print magazine content and much of that content would have to be paid for.<\/p>\n

I rather like the blueprint set by the mountain bike magazine Singletrack. You can subscribe online to the print mag only, or to a downloadable e-magazine. When you subscribe you become a Premium user and get access to loads of new stuff on the website that \u2018ordinary\u2019 browsers are denied. It\u2019s magazine and website working in tandem, and if outdoor magazines are to survive, then that\u2019s the route they\u2019ll have to follow.<\/p>\n

Have your say on our forum<\/a>.<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his monthly Viewpoint column, outdoors writer, broadcaster and mountain walker Cameron McNeish asks where Outdoor magazines can survive. A magazine dropped through my letterbox the other day. After a cursory glance at the front cover I put it on top of a pile of other outdoor mags that I subscribe to. I must admit I laid it on the magazine pile with something of a guilty conscience and promised myself, for the umpteenth time, that at some point I would try and get round to reading them all. But do you know what? I probably won\u2019t. Now this might…<\/span> <\/p>\n

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