Motorsport Network acquires Autosport & the Haymarket Media Group’s motor racing portfolio

Has anyone ever read the comments section below articles on Motorsport.com ??

Wow... Breathtaking insanity.

Jeez Louise.
Jp

The "bottom half of the internet" as Dave Gorman would say 

James Allen is now moving to Motorsport.com

http://https://www.j...len-on-f1-blog/

No, he has just sold his blog.

he will go where the money is as anyone who works in motorsport writing does.

Люди смеялись, когда я говорил, что нужно учить русский язык...

Jp

Sometimes we laugh when you speak English.

Люди смеялись, когда я говорил, что нужно учить русский язык...

Best of luck guys. Awful thing to have to experience when your company restructures/shrinks.

As someone who was a bit involved in the original AtlasF1 and first posted here in 1998 I can only hope that this place somehow survives.

Ufff

Fritz-Dieter Rencken
@RacingLines
Further to this, am hearing announcements expected Tuesday, including sale of some titles, closure of others and layoffs. Sad, & really hope new owners can salvage the situation.

https://twitter.com/...9781662720?s=19

I haven't seen any announcements on this. Has anyone else?

Surprised it hadn't been finalised/announced, or that it wasn't scooped up years ago. You can't put a price on the kind of content they put out. I mean just look at this *checks notes* transcript of a YouTube video? And from the talents of the Editor in Chief no less. 

https://www.motorspo...eclerc/4550065/

Fritz-Dieter Rencken Retweeted Fritz-Dieter Rencken

Just noticed motorsport.com now has the same limit on viewing stories as Autosport. What a pity. Previously, whenever I'd run out of free views on the latter, I'd head to the former to read the word-for-word identical story.

I suppose it's not a surprise, therefore, that they've closed that off. But seriously - 3 free stories for a month? Whose stupid idea was that? Talk about how to alienate people - I'm sure once upon a time the limit was a far more reasonable 10-15 free stories a month. But, clearly, they weren't getting enough money out of people...

It just amazes me that a time when we often hear how important it is to get more people interested in motorsport, and with most series now behind a paywall, you can't even read stories about said series without now having to pay as well?! Where's the facepalm emoticon?

Yes, there are other sites - but Autosport/Motorsport have been my go-to sources, just for the amount of coverage and stories you can't find elsewhere. I suspect that will change now.

Sincerely,

Aggrieved of Derbyshire.

Oh no, does that apply to things like "All of Driver X's wins" galleries?

Never going to pay anything for access through a medium as undependable as the internet. Never. Ever. There you go!

Jeez, this discussion takes me back a bit.

Never going to pay anything for access through a medium as undependable as the internet. Never. Ever. There you go!

Oh no, does that apply to things like "All of Driver X's wins" galleries?

Ahh Galleries. A lost art form.

Simply put when Autosport made the decision to start charging for news stories I never clicked on it again, and the same will be true of this other channel.  it's not hard, another site will crop up offering free stuff, it usually does.

Unless of course this network intend to buy everything!

Very sad, especially for those that have been there decades.

And a ruthless modus operandi by the people who own it all, they did that very American thing of buying it all, letting it settle, asset stripping and closing down the majority of it.

there is obviously a very easy way to avoid it all. 

Motorsport.com isn't really American. 

And this isn't really asset stripping/leveraged buyout/etc. It's just a chaotic growth strategy, when a lot of the growth is just buying things(including traffic) hoping...at some point it's profitable? Which is difficult when your staff count must be near F1-team levels now. 

It's a shame. As lightweight as F1 Racing was editorially(by design, I reckon) it was a beautiful magazine to look at at times and some of the non-motoring people, ie the art department, very much deserve to continue in the industry and I'm sure they will. 

Edited by Ross Stonefeld, 06 October 2019 - 21:06.

If I am reading this right - and I might not be - there is a suggestion that only the print version of the magazine will close, and the online version stays?

However the brand, according to Autosport’s special events manager Laura Coppin, will remain online via Autosport.com, confirming earlier speculation about the magazine’s future.

https://motorsportbr...ne-publication/

Edited by rmhorton, 06 October 2019 - 21:21.

If I am reading this right - and I might not be - there is a suggestion that only the print version of the magazine will close, and the online version stays?

 

 

However the brand, according to Autosport’s special events manager Laura Coppin, will remain online via Autosport.com, confirming earlier speculation about the magazine’s future.

 

 

https://motorsportbr...ne-publication/

From my reading of that, I believe they mean the www.autosport.com site will continue to exist, rather than anything about just being an emagazine, but I could be wrong.

I'd find it a shame. I've never been one for ebooks/magazines. For me, there's something special about physically turning pages and finding what's next, rather than just scrolling on a screen. I know they're far better for saving space - I've got an enormous stack of old Autosport magazines in my wardrobe that I keep putting off sorting - but it's just not the same at all.

The tweet by Laura Coppin has been removed.

Presumably the forum stays

As a not-affected-by-the-magazine-closure-millenial, it would hit hard if this place closed.

We’ll be fine... we have a good option if worse comes to worse.
Jp

This is very good news.

Really, this is more than just a Forum.

This forum must stay …. its my go to place everyday.

It looks so Tom. There's a statement here. https://mobile.twitter.com/autosport

The comments on that Twitter thread, from disgruntled Autosport print readers, show how you can alienate a customer-base without even trying.  What a sad mess.

Just to put some perspective on this, Autosport's latest Audit Bureau of Circulation figures - Jan-Dec 2018 - show an average net sale of just 15480 copies per issue, of which 10677 are on subscription and 174 given away free. So that means that just 4629 copies are sold at full retail price.

https://www.abc.org.uk/product/2469

And with a net sale like that, their returns rate from retailers is likely to be pretty high - they're likely putting over 7000 copies out into newsagents, on a sale or return basis. Once returned to the wholesaler and audited, those returns will be pulped.

That's less than half the weekly sale for Autocar, which also competes against Auto Express. Those two sell 70000 copies a week between them. Motor Sport sells nearly 30000 copies a month - at one point about a decade ago it was down near 10000. Motor Sport actually now outsells F1 Racing.

Just to put some perspective on this, Autosport's latest Audit Bureau of Circulation figures - Jan-Dec 2018 - show an average net sale of just 15480 copies per issue, of which 10677 are on subscription and 174 given away free. So that means that just 4629 copies are sold at full retail price.

 

https://www.abc.org.uk/product/2469

 

And with a net sale like that, their returns rate from retailers is likely to be pretty high - they're likely putting over 7000 copies out into newsagents, on a sale or return basis. Once returned to the wholesaler and audited, those returns will be pulped.

 

That's less than half the weekly sale for Autocar, which also competes against Auto Express. Those two sell 70000 copies a week between them. Motor Sport sells nearly 30000 copies a month - at one point about a decade ago it was down near 10000. Motor Sport actually now outsells F1 Racing.

Those figures are frightening. I've just downloaded the full certificate, it gets worse. The 15,480 includes 3,974 digital editions, just 11,500 paper magazines and just 279 of those sold at full price. One needs a subscription to look at earlier years, I'd almost guarantee the figures were appreciably better than these just a few years ago

The TT database is under threat. 

Edited by milestone 11, 09 October 2019 - 11:44.

Those figures are frightening. I've just downloaded the full certificate, it gets worse. The 15,480 includes 3,974 digital editions, just 11,500 paper magazines and just 279 of those sold at full price. One needs a subscription to look at earlier years, I'd almost guarantee the figures were appreciably better than these just a few years ago

I remember 10 years ago they were sub 20, I want to say 17k-ish.