Both of Salt Lake City newspapers went to a weekly (Sunday) print version with more in-depth articles and less "news" and discontinued their daily print editions. The current (daily) news is now on their respective websites with one offering it for free and the other having a paywall. Just received my current issue of MotorTrend. Those guys are doing their best to put out a magazine during a pandemic where they can't really get a lot of cars from the manufacturers to review, nor go in to their So. Cal located offices to work.
Road & Track magazine ending?
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Yep. I subscribed for over 25 years and kept an attic full of back issues that I wish I still had. However, everything is now going digital so I suspect their business model will change to digital only. I don't know if they will have paid content only or rely strictly on advertising revenue.
I stopped subscribing when Peter Egan retired.
I agree. I hate using my phone for most tasks like banking online. Doesn't help when your eyesight ain't what it used to be.
It's not the car wars, but the general decline of print media.
There's not enough advertising to support it, it's not timely enough, and the way information is disseminated and consumed has changed.
Advertisers can also gather a lot more data about consumers in the digital realm.
Google and Facebook aren't information and social companies, they're advertising companies, and the money from selling user information, on and offline, is big business, if not The big business in these times.
I still subscribe to C/D, and tried R&T a few years ago, but it wasn't the magazine of Egan, Ireland, Walker, etc., of course.
Nor are the others, but I find C/D is still ok, and worth $4/year, if only to have around and casually thumb through. Also still beats lot of the car-oriented sites, which as a whole have never risen above mediocre, with some truly awful writing and too many gimmicky or snarky bents.
They have a web site and hopefully a revenue model.
I liked magazines too but there relevance has ended.
I liked magazines too but there relevance has ended.
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Many of these automotive "rags" got a bad reputation in the late 80s because readers started hearing rumors (many of them true) that these
auto "journalists" were being payed off by the mrfs with fabulous trips, food, gifts, ect for good reviews of their cars. In reality many of them deserved to be gone decades ago.
auto "journalists" were being payed off by the mrfs with fabulous trips, food, gifts, ect for good reviews of their cars. In reality many of them deserved to be gone decades ago.
Sad to learn of another once great mag going away. I was an occasional reader of R&T since the late 60's and subscribed from late 70's to about 2010. When they were once again bought out, most staff canned and moved to Detroit. All supercars and such then and it wasn't for me anymore.
I always enjoyed everything that Peter Egan wrote for R&T. I also have read Cycle World to it's recent print end. Egan started with Cycle World then also started writing for R&T later on. Both pubs were once owned by the same publisher, CBS. Cycle World had their last print issue last Dec. That hit me hard. Egan was still writing the occasional piece for CW and had two in the last issue. He had left R&T years ago. CW tried a 4 issue per year big glossy format but that lasted less than 2 years, I believe.
Our local newspaper was bought out of bankruptcy a year or two by a sole conglomerate bidder. It's still published but is quite the joke in everyway. There's not a listing of standings or scores for any sport anymore. All watchdogs on local governments have ceased to exist.
I've achieved geezer status but always loved reading something in my hands. Much of digital publishing is pared down to few features and re-released old ones. Kind of like rebranding on nearly everything. The result is nearly always a far lower quality/quantity and a higher cost.
I always enjoyed everything that Peter Egan wrote for R&T. I also have read Cycle World to it's recent print end. Egan started with Cycle World then also started writing for R&T later on. Both pubs were once owned by the same publisher, CBS. Cycle World had their last print issue last Dec. That hit me hard. Egan was still writing the occasional piece for CW and had two in the last issue. He had left R&T years ago. CW tried a 4 issue per year big glossy format but that lasted less than 2 years, I believe.
Our local newspaper was bought out of bankruptcy a year or two by a sole conglomerate bidder. It's still published but is quite the joke in everyway. There's not a listing of standings or scores for any sport anymore. All watchdogs on local governments have ceased to exist.
I've achieved geezer status but always loved reading something in my hands. Much of digital publishing is pared down to few features and re-released old ones. Kind of like rebranding on nearly everything. The result is nearly always a far lower quality/quantity and a higher cost.
Re digital mag's, what do folks think of MotoIQ.com? Mike Kojima is a principal fellow there... a well known automotive engineer.
https://motoiq.com/about/
https://motoiq.com/about/
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What Saddens and scares me a bit is how little the younger crowd even gets into cars. My son enjoys them at 12, but at least he likes cars and the tech they have now. He actually reads my older c&d and MT mags. But short of us older folk on here, car mags and car stuff in general are going to way of the dodo.....
That was Henry Manney III ... and let's not forget Denise McCluggage, who was a pioneer for women in auto sports and automotive journalism.
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Get an iPad. It’s a different experience from a full on computer.
Jan 2021 Hot Rod Magazine
Still not too pleasant if you want to read something lying on the couch. And quickly thumbing through the pages to get back to something you saw before is difficult. I can barely tolerate repair manuals in electronic format but those can be thousands of pages so it makes some sense. For magazines not so much.
I understand completely. If you are interested in trying a friends tablet you can see all the pages at the bottom of the screen and quickly find the one you want. Anyway enough said. It’s too bad they finally gave up.
I have subscribed to a lot of the car mags over the years (C&D, R&T, Automobile, Autoweek, Motor Trend). Motor Trend was my favorite and I kept my subscription active for years. However, it ended this past December and I did not renew. The content just became so mundane and boring. I am tired of reading about super cars, hyper cars, exotic cars, $70K SUVs and $75K trucks and other vehicles I will generally never be able to afford in my lifetime. The mass market cars that most people can actually go buy today are treated to a one page write-up. Even the long-term road tests are boring.
Not sure if that speaks more about the magazine content, or the general state of the automobile industry these days. Perhaps the mass market cars have reached a point where they are all so boringly similar that the magazines had no choice but to stick to the high dollar exotic stuff. Who knows.
Not sure if that speaks more about the magazine content, or the general state of the automobile industry these days. Perhaps the mass market cars have reached a point where they are all so boringly similar that the magazines had no choice but to stick to the high dollar exotic stuff. Who knows.
I'm right there with you, I'm getting better at reading off of a screen, but I still have hardcopy wired into my brain. Slightly off-topic, but I've lost count of the number of times I've worked on a document, it looked fine on the screen, and when I print it off, I find 4 errors on the first page alone, without even trying.
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