Bike magazines

Yes, absolutely. I was impressed by the current issue. Impressed enough
to read it in Smith's but not buy it. Still, that's a step in the right
direction. A few months ago I wouldn't even have bother to look at it.

 

No, YTC, it's Classic Bike.

 

No, YTC, it's Classic Bike.[/QUOTE]

I didn't know if you were just shortening motorcycle to bike.

 

The Older Gentleman emerged from their own little world to say

Much better exposure in other media. For example, I bet KTM are kicking
themsleves that they did not get involved in the Long Way Round project.
BMW R-GS sales rose significantly.

Again, other media open up your product to a whole new audience. When I was
first considering buying a bike, 13 years ago, What Bike was the first
thing I bought. It's demise exemplifies how things have changed. I would
hazard a guess that most newbies are inspired by something they see on the
telly & do their research on the web.

 

I didn't know if you were just shortening motorcycle to bike.[/QUOTE]

Classic Bike is EMAP. Classic Motorcycle is Mortons.

It's getting confusing, agreed. Actually, if anyone were to start a new
magazine they'd have a tough job finding a name that doesn't belong to
someone else.

 

"Shit Bikes"

 

That's the one TOG and I are going to do.

"Shit Bikes featuring Tool Use Monthly".

 

The Older Gentleman wrote:

"Recreational Motorcycling"

and if it was limited to the UK only.....

 

For sure, hence why I compared to TV ads in the earlier post, where ever
there a substitutes the consumer will (and should) compare the value
between the two. However print advertising is significantly cheaper than
TV and Radio (in Oz and US anyway, I assume true for UK), hence to get
someone to substitute from magazine to TV would require a very large
price hike, then when you consider the effectiveness it's even less
appealing, the odds of getting your ad in front of the same number of
bike interested people via TV is actually quite poor ('cos we're a
minority, hence most who watch the idiot box aren't riders), you'd have
to advertise during a bike race for instance.

Absolutely, but if there are a total of say 1m readers across 10 mags,
and then half of them fold, a significant portion of those readers will
distribute across the remaining mags, maybe some of the 500K will never
buy a bike mag again, but some portion will substitute across to the
remainders, therefore YOUR circulation has gone up.

If the *whole market* shrinks by 500K (ie all those left without their
normal mag stop buying all together) then there is something very wrong
with the remaining mags, and their number is going to reduce further
than the remining 5.

The demographics,sociographics, preferences, absolutely, the bike mag
that's holding 200,000 middle aged wealthy bikers is going to be able to
charge a shit load more than the mag with 500,000 spotty faced teens.
The relative value of both the products they buy and their ability to
purchase them is factorially* greater.

It's not always as clear cut as that. Firstly you're mixing multiple
concepts together, each of which may be opposing or reinforcing.

First is level of supply competion, ceteris paribus, fewer magazines in
the market means an individual mag has greater market power (and should
increase market share to some extent).

Second is change in demand of the consumers for magazines overall - if
the overall market is shrinking due to preference shift than that
obviously has impact, whether it affects an individual mag though is
going to depend on the demographics that are exiting. You posited that
it's the yoof who aren't coming into the market at the same rate hence
natural attrition is reducing size of market. However that isn't going
to affect readership of every mag in the same way - the more dependent
you are on the incoming spotty faced ones the more affected you'll be.
I'd throw in that the anecdotes posted to the thread suggest that older
readers are leaving because they aren't getting anything from existing
mags, which means there's probably niches available that are unexploited.

Third is substitutability between advertising media (already discussed),
also includes things like in store promos, sponsorship etc

Fourth is elasticity of demand of the purchasers of media advertising -
how reactive are they really to changes in price. Differentiated
products are less price sensitive (they can't get exactly the same
outcome from one of your competitors as they get from advertising with
you, and the more unique your readership the more differentiated you
are, hopefully in a good way )

Each of these has to be considered individually, you can't just say the
market is shrinking therefore I have to drop my prices, if you go from
20% of 1m readers to 90% of 500K, you have a LOT more market power, if
the manufacturers want to get to certain people, there's no better way
than through a magazine that has that sort of niche market share

JL
*is that a valid usage ? "greater by a factor of.." ?

 

Hopefully not in this newsgroup. If they do, now is the time to put that
old angle grinder and Gixer thou up for sale on fleabay.

 

In uk.rec.motorcycles, Beelzebub amazed us all with this pearl of
wisdom:

And Leroy.

 

"Half-arsed bodges and bikes monthly"

 

The Older Gentleman says...

There are some exceptions, the firm I work for being one of them. In
general TOG is right, the bike trade is manned mainly by enthusiasts
who are trying to be businessmen, not the other way round. It doesn't
always work, which is why the bike trade has this very amateur feel to
it.

 

The Older Gentleman scribbled:

Should be advertising moped accessories really, mod jackets, mirrors,
etc...

Noooooooooooooo! UBG must survive!

 

That must have really damaged the KTM brand. Charley, who ALWAYS
wanted them for the trip since day one, having a swearing fit because
KTM felt "you might fail in your adventure" runs over the office,
grabbing KTM poster off the wall, ripping it off and throwing it in
the bin. The team call up BMW, they say "There's always a chance of
failure in every adventure, but the important part of the adventure is
to try." - That stuck with me.

When looking for a bike I would *never* consider a KTM because of
their attitude to this one case.

 

On Sat, 4 Jun 2005 10:28:32 +0100,

That's the stuff! I notice on this edition of Bike there's a brief
article, with a few photo of how to check/replace brake pads.

Must be fucking simplistic, but I'd never had attempted it before,
even with the Haynes Manual at my side, but I wouldn't hesitate now,
should I need to.

Oh, no idea how to adjust a chain though.

 

Will it feature "Tool of the Month" and feature exciting applications
for Gaffer tape and cable ties?

 

I wasn't thinking of TV, actually. I was thinking viral web marketing,
posters, radio, below-the-line activity, and other publications.

 

I wasn't thinking of TV, actually. I was thinking viral web marketing,
posters, radio, below-the-line activity, and other publications.

You don't appear to know much about publishing. That is simply not the
way it works.

You don't appear to know how the UK motorcycle market works. No shame in
that, bearing in mind where you live.

Increased market share is not the same as increased readership

I did? Where? I've searched this thread and I can't find myself saying
that.

I agree to an extent, but the UK market is really remarkably small, and
your numbers are out by a factor of 10 as regards sales. OK, it's
hypothesizing, but you'll have to trust me - the UK market is very odd,
and with declining machine sales as well as magazine readers, I don't
think your thesis, academically correct though it may be, works here.

 

And angle grinders. Don't forget angle grinders.