Key Publishing acquires Ian Allan magazines

[Edwin_m]

http://www.keypublishing.com/view_news.asp?ID=4970

 

It seems Ian Allan has sold its portfolio of rail and other magazines, some of which have been under the same ownership for well over half a century. I have been a long-term subscriber to Modern Railways and would hope this continues with its excellent coverage of the industry.

 

Not mentioned is Railway Herald, which is now I think a joint venture with Ian Allan and which some on another thread suggested was simply duplicating their existing publications. Perhaps they think paper magazines are a thing of the past?

[Xerces Fobe2]

http://www.keypublis...ews.asp?ID=4970

 

It seems Ian Allan has sold its portfolio of rail and other magazines, some of which have been under the same ownership for well over half a century. I have been a long-term subscriber to Modern Railways and would hope this continues with its excellent coverage of the industry.

 

Not mentioned is Railway Herald, which is now I think a joint venture with Ian Allan and which some on another thread suggested was simply duplicating their existing publications. Perhaps they think paper magazines are a thing of the past?

 

The paper magaziine is diffently in the autumn of it's life!

 

Xerces Fobe

[edcayton]

The paper magaziine is diffently in the autumn of it's life!

 

Xerces Fobe

 

Well, you say that and I can see what you mean, but if you look at the vast amount of different titles there are in any WHS branch you could think otherwise.

 

I can certainly see the weaker ones going to the wall, and some are clearly hedging their bets like Warners on here, but until there is an easily portable (ie phone size) but easily readable(ie at least i-pad) format I think the paper mag is good for a few years yet.

 

Ed

[Revolution Mike]

Even though I prefer electronic content, I can't see paper mags going for the next 5 years at least. There are what, say, 14,000 registered members on here some of which may be duplicates and I wonder how many read the equivalent of a mags worth of material on here each month.

 

Compare that with RM (40,000) or MR (30,000?) readerships then electronic content still has some way to go.

 

As I mentioned on another thread, e-mags still have some way to go in nailing down a format that gives me confidence that I will still be able to read them in 30 years time.

 

Cheers, Mike

[petethemole]

With a paper mag, once you've bought it, you've got it, no further expenditure needed, except possibly for neat storage. For an e-mag, you subscribe, download onto a PC/laptop you already have, so far so good. Not too easy to read in bed, diificult on the bus. So for more money you buy some small screen device. Now you can really appreciate the detail in those layout or review pictures, not. You don't see so many scale drawings in the mags these days, but they are/were usually at a set scale. From an e-mag you'd have to print out the drawings, hopefully getting the scale spot-on first time. I could go on. OK I'm a bit of a luddite, but doing something because the technology exists to do it is not always actually progress (digital radio v FM anyone?). Paper mags for me please! And I keep them, though modelling mags eventually lose the outer wodges of ads. Another topic there though.

Pete

[Phil Parker]

Even though I prefer electronic content, I can't see paper mags going for the next 5 years at least. There are what, say, 14,000 registered members on here some of which may be duplicates and I wonder how many read the equivalent of a mags worth of material on here each month.

 

Compare that with RM (40,000) or MR (30,000?) readerships then electronic content still has some way to go.

 

An important point is that this is at least 30-40 thousand people who are voting with thier wallets every month as opposed to 14 thousand who need pay nothing more than the costs of the monthly broadband they use for other things.

 

The paper mag is far from dead at the moment. The problem is that making money on the web with information is very difficult indeed. The Times have had the best shot with a paywall (all the other newspaper websites are burning cash at a huge rate and subsidised by the print version) but that's probably only going to work for current content. It's far nearer to the RM Web than Railway Modeller in this respect. Would you pay money to be a member of RM Web ? How much ?

 

Once people get used to paying for properly edited and written content delivered electronically then the paper mag might die. Until then, publishers will stick with what they know.

 

Phil

[Katier]

Print will be here for a LONG time to come.. absolutely no doubt about it at all. As has been said already, just look in a WHSmiths, the place is heaving with magazines and people buying them. We are a nation of readers and while electronic forms are increasing, overall the good old book/magazine will not die for a very long time - one of the few things I'm willing to bet on .

[leopardml2341]

I'll bet I'm long gone before printed magazines !

 

But I'll also wager that the unnecessary plastic bags that some of them come in will still be around long after I'm compost.

[petee19]

Well I'm 65,have a Desktop PC, and a Laptop and very much appreciate this technology but there is no way I would entertain an electronic publication.I really look forward to picking up a magazine from WHS or similar,usually Railway,Bus,or Canal related when out and about,and its something I can pick up and read at any point in the day,be it for 5 minutes or longer!

[lmsforever]

I certainly hope that printed mags stay around for a long time as I for one much prefer to read one the pictures etc look so much better in printed form and as said above its great when the mag drops through the letter box or you browse at Smiths for the mag you want.Lets hope that the new publishers leave the content alone in these mags as the new publishers of The Railway Magazine have done.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

I tend to scan through electronic journals, but read hard copy ones.