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Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter)
Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) SuperDork
3/13/24 8:35 p.m.
BoxheadTim said:

In reply to brandonsmash :

Actually there is still at least one US based motorcycle magazine in print (RoadRunner). Like GRM, published by a small family owned business and not a big conglomerate. Yes, I'm a subscriber much like I subscribe to GRM and CM. 

I had never heard of that magazine before. It looks like something I'd enjoy. I just subscribed. 

GCrites
GCrites Dork
3/13/24 8:53 p.m.
Tom Suddard said:
Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) said:

I sure get irritated when I subscribe to a magazine and I begin to receive renewal offers in the mail before I even receive my first issue. 

I'm just saying. Fix that E36 M3. 

Man oh man do I wish we could. 

We don't like them either--they cost us money, and they annoy people. 

I don't think that in the old print media days anyone was thinking about how sending out the notices cost money except for the accountants. Some might still think that way. Score one for small-business savvy.

Coniglio Rampante
Coniglio Rampante Reader
3/13/24 10:19 p.m.

Here's a link to an older paper that may be of interest:  

Media Bias and Advertising: Evidence from German Car Magazines

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/48691/1/VfS_2011_pid_921.pdf
 

06HHR (Forum Supporter)
06HHR (Forum Supporter) SuperDork
3/13/24 10:41 p.m.

Quoted the wrong price for Motorsport Magazine, for the USA, the yearly subscription price is $115.20! (7.50 pounds per month at the current exchange rate) Seems like GRM is undercharging... cheeky

Tom1200
Tom1200 PowerDork
3/13/24 11:36 p.m.
06HHR (Forum Supporter) said:

Quoted the wrong price for Motorsport Magazine, for the USA, the yearly subscription price is $115.20! (7.50 pounds per month at the current exchange rate) Seems like GRM is undercharging... cheeky

I am a Motorsport Magazine subscriber and have been for 20 years. It's worth every penny. It has a whole host of racing insiders writing for the magazine. It's a mixing of racing history, vintage race reports and incredible interviews.

It's a very different magazine to GRM. Both do an excellent job in their niche.......and yes GRM is an absolute bargin.

ddavidv
ddavidv UltimaDork
3/14/24 8:14 a.m.
mfennell said:
 

As noted above, the motorcycle press is in even worse shape.  Any idiot with a camera is a 'reviewer' now.  

Ain't that the truth. Everyone wants to be on the manufacturer's 'darling' list so they can go to the releases in Spain, etc.

I did a multi-part series on my new Royal Enfield because I wanted to address the bike from a US perspective and do something that wasn't a kiss-up to RE (who actually doesn't care if you are critical about their products from what I've heard). I'm just a guy, and not a 'reviewer'. I bought it with my own $. And I reviewed it honestly. From the number of views I still get, it is apparent there is real money to be made in YouTube bike reviews. I'm not getting rich off of it, but it could easily cover a bike payment if I had one. I now see why everyone and his father are doing bike reviews. 

I'll admit, I spent more time watching YT video reviews on bikes when I shopped for my last one than I did reading about them. I'm not saying the information was superior. It was perhaps easier to find and consume. I suppose it is just the modern face of media.

docwyte
docwyte UltimaDork
3/14/24 10:50 a.m.

The Hagerty magazine is very good.  Sadly its part of the Hagerty Drivers Club and they've decided to stop covering all the cars in your garage.  So if your DD needs to get towed, they won't do it. I don't care to have and pay for tow coverage thru Hagerty and AAA, so I dropped the Hagerty Drivers Club.  I called and asked them if I could just get the magazine and the answer was "Nope!".  The magazine should be part of the insurance premium I pay, not the tow coverage, especially since it only covers the car on the Hagerty policy.

I've had the "&" magazine subscriptions for close to 40 years now. They're both a shadow of their previous selves, I recently got something like 30 years worth of issues of R&T, they were 300+ pages of great content.  C&D now is 80 pages and it's hardly worth reading.  If I didn't bring them into work for my patients to read I wouldn't bother subscribing anymore.  I'm sad to see the more niche magazines like European Car, Sport Compact Car etc go away.  I remember getting SCC when it was 350+ pages and spending a happy afternoon reading it.

wrenchedexcess (Forum Supporter)
wrenchedexcess (Forum Supporter) Reader
3/14/24 5:09 p.m.

Do you remember when C&D made the Chevrolet Vega car of the year? And then did it again with the Renault Encore? That was just one magazine out of how many? Put utube in the same light.  If you are looking for some accurate information, you are going to have to look at 30 or 40 videos to find some type of correct information. The rest are just a scam to create viewers. Utube can be great but do your research.

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter)
Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) GRM+ Memberand UltimaDork
3/14/24 5:20 p.m.
wrenchedexcess (Forum Supporter) said:

Do you remember when C&D made the Chevrolet Vega car of the year? And then did it again with the Renault Encore? That was just one magazine out of how many? Put utube in the same light.  If you are looking for some accurate information, you are going to have to look at 30 or 40 videos to find some type of correct information. The rest are just a scam to create viewers. Utube can be great but do your research.

No, because C&D does do COTY. Motor Trend does. But yes, they've picked some real stinkers. I only point this out because at one time C&D had some editorial integrity. As far as I can tell, MT never has.

ddavidv
ddavidv UltimaDork
3/15/24 8:01 a.m.

I once had a collection of MT from the 1960s. They seemed reasonably objective back then. I think they lost their way in the 1970s.

hybridmomentspass
hybridmomentspass Dork
3/15/24 10:50 a.m.

This reminds me that I need to renew...

 

Any promo codes currently for 2 year subsrcription?

hybridmomentspass
hybridmomentspass Dork
3/15/24 10:51 a.m.

Also, I love physical media. The demise of magazines bums me out, I miss the 'old days' of the late 90s and early 00s with so many car magazines catering to compact cars and sporty cars

Tom Suddard
Tom Suddard GRM+ Memberand Publisher
3/15/24 11:00 a.m.

In reply to hybridmomentspass :

Thanks for the support! You can get a free T-shirt with a 2-year subscription here: https://motorsportmarketingservice.com/grassroots/customer/subscribe.php

jimbob_racing
jimbob_racing SuperDork
3/15/24 11:09 a.m.
hybridmomentspass said:

Also, I love physical media. The demise of magazines bums me out, I miss the 'old days' of the late 90s and early 00s with so many car magazines catering to compact cars and sporty cars

Me too. Even the adds were awesome.  Page after page of Nopi ads.

Mustang50
Mustang50 Reader
3/15/24 1:06 p.m.

I subscribe to GRM, CM, Hemmings Muscle Machines, and Vintage Motorsports.  VM has recently changed their content and it has become Racer Junior, not going to renew.   C&D and R&T are for suv's and pickups.  

I just received a copy of C&D June 1963 issue.  My first sports car magazine I purchased.  What a difference from today's C&D.

I mailed in a check for a 2 year renewal for CM on Feb. 25th.  Check has not been cashed yet.  Get the subscription office in gear.

Always on the lookout for more print magazines.  Any suggestions?

wrenchedexcess (Forum Supporter)
wrenchedexcess (Forum Supporter) Reader
3/16/24 2:04 p.m.

My bad, Motor Trend.

BoxheadTim
BoxheadTim GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
3/16/24 5:48 p.m.

The only print magazines I still subscribe to other than the aforementioned RoadRunner are GRM, CM and Motorcycle Classics. I also get a couple of club-based magazines like Sportscar and Panorama.

I still subscribe to a couple of UK magazines and a couple of German magazines but those are all electronic simply because the shipping costs to the US make these magazines horribly expensive otherwise, plus when I still had a print subscription to Practical Performance Car (they folded recently), about a third of the magazine issues never arrived.

docwyte
docwyte UltimaDork
3/17/24 10:09 a.m.

The club magazines have stepped into the area where the others used to be.  Panorama is really quite good and I enjoy receiving it.  Likewise the Hagerty magazine is great, and I'm really sad that they decided to drop tow coverage for all the vehicles in your garage, then didn't make the magazine a stand alone purchase, or part of your insurance premium, instead of part of the tow coverage.

Roundel is the outlier, I don't feel like it's gotten better, in fact, I find it far worse and generally skim through it and then throw it away.  I won't be renewing my BMWCCA membership, I don't really like the magazine anymore and none of the newer BMW products grab my fancy....

stuart in mn
stuart in mn MegaDork
3/17/24 4:39 p.m.

I thought my subscription to Hot Rod ran out in December, but for some reason I got the first quarterly Spring 2024 issue in the mail this week.  It's thicker with nicer paper and good photos, but this issue is dedicated to Pro Street cars which never did much for me.

When the change from monthly to quarterly was announced, they gave me a free one year subscription the Motor Trend+ website where I can view all the back issues going back to 1948 and watch all the videos.  Then, they sent out another announcement that the MT+ platform was moving to Discovery+ and I'd have to sign up for that.  A couple days ago they sent another announcement that they were going to cover the cost of the MT+ subscription for a year.  It's hard to keep track. indecision

stuart in mn
stuart in mn MegaDork
3/17/24 4:42 p.m.
docwyte said:

Roundel is the outlier, I don't feel like it's gotten better, in fact, I find it far worse and generally skim through it and then throw it away.  I won't be renewing my BMWCCA membership, I don't really like the magazine anymore and none of the newer BMW products grab my fancy....

I made that decision about a decade ago...they did a big purge of most of the long time regular columnists, and it seemed like they were more interested in being a travel magazine than a car magazine.

docwyte
docwyte UltimaDork
3/17/24 4:51 p.m.

In reply to stuart in mn :

Agreed.  They fired most of the columnists and replaced them.  Rob Siegel and Dave Farnsworth have columns here and there, along with the 2002 guy.  The rest of them are new and I don't really like their work. 

Tom1200
Tom1200 PowerDork
3/17/24 7:24 p.m.
Mustang50 said:

 

Always on the lookout for more print magazines.  Any suggestions?

Motorsport.

Kreb (Forum Supporter)
Kreb (Forum Supporter) GRM+ Memberand PowerDork
3/17/24 9:08 p.m.

A friend just gave me a pristine copy of Hot Rod from 1955. What a great read! And -although it was never intended that way, a historical/social record of the time.

I subscribe to GRM, CM, as well as a couple of print newspapers that only marginally interest me, because I just can't imagine a world without the medium. I also subscribe to the digital versions of several newspapers and throw in such things as Wikipedia as well. These things may die anyway, but at least I will have done my part.

As a young-un, I really looked forward to the great automotive columnists of the day. People like Brock Yates, Peter Egan,  P.J. O'Roarke and David E Davis come to mind as people who were as fun to read as the sport itself was to participate in. It's pretty depressing how things have gone. 

ddavidv
ddavidv UltimaDork
3/18/24 9:21 a.m.
stuart in mn said:
docwyte said:

Roundel is the outlier, I don't feel like it's gotten better, in fact, I find it far worse and generally skim through it and then throw it away.  I won't be renewing my BMWCCA membership, I don't really like the magazine anymore and none of the newer BMW products grab my fancy....

I made that decision about a decade ago...they did a big purge of most of the long time regular columnists, and it seemed like they were more interested in being a travel magazine than a car magazine.

Is Satch Carlson still the editor? I haven't seen an issue in probably a decade. He was one of my favorite columnists in Autoweek until he got himself fired.

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter)
Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) GRM+ Memberand UltimaDork
3/18/24 9:56 a.m.
ddavidv said:

Is Satch Carlson still the editor? I haven't seen an issue in probably a decade. He was one of my favorite columnists in Autoweek until he got himself fired.

Satch was probably the #1 reason I started subscribing to Autoweek back in the late 80s. Loved his writing. Too bad he got himself mixed up in that... unfortunateness (He was also a HS teacher in Alaska and had an affair with one of his students).

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