Mountain Biking Australia Magazine is finished. Thoughts?

glenn1529

Likes Dirt
Mountain Biking Australia Magazine has announced in the latest Issue that they are done.
Stating in the Editorial Dominic Unwin states “Yaffa Media have made the difficult decision to cease publishing the quarterly magazine. While COVID-19 hasn’t helped, the change is part of a shift in direction to a more multi-platform-based media brand with a strong focus on live activations.” Whatever the fuck that means.
IMO the formerly great magazine has been going down the gurgler since John Hardwick gave up the number one job.
Is it a sign of the times that print media is going the way of the land-line telephone? Or, in this period of rapid growth of the industry is the magazine simply not good enough to spend the money?
 
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Cardy George

Piercing rural members since 1981
Mountain Biking Australia Magazine has announced in the latest Issue that they are done.
Stating in the Editorial Dominic Unwin states “Yaffa Media have made the difficult decision to cease publishing the quarterly magazine. While COVID-19 hasn’t helped, the change is part of a shift in direction to a more multi-platform-based media brand with a strong focus on live activations.” Whatever the fuck that means.
IMO the formerly great magazine has been going down the gurgler since John Hardwick gave up the number one job.
Is it a sign of the times that print media is going the way of the land-line telephone? Or, in this period of rapid growth of the industry is the magazine simply not good enough to spend the money?
Sign of the times, unfortunately. By the time you get a print in your grubby hands, the content is yesterday's standard and already replaced. Same as the traditional newspaper.
 
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Mr Crudley

Glock in your sock
The internet ate MTB things like:
  • Buying bike parts in global market.
  • Any MTB print media at upwards of $12 per copy with loads of ads which always got thinner and less frequent as time rolled on.
  • Most MTB printed media comes with a bias as they know well who pays their bills IMHO.
  • The web is just easier once you get over needing to hold paper.
They can't stop it even if they see it was coming. I sit here with bated breath on the next exciting 'multi-platform-based media brand with a strong focus on live activations' too...Errr.......
 

Flow-Rider

Burner
The internet ate MTB things like:
  • Buying bike parts in global market.
  • Any MTB print media at upwards of $12 per copy with loads of ads which always got thinner and less frequent as time rolled on.
  • Most MTB printed media comes with a bias as they know well who pays their bills IMHO.
  • The web is just easier once you get over needing to hold paper.
They can't stop it even if they see it was coming. I sit here with bated breath on the next exciting 'multi-platform-based media brand with a strong focus on live activations' too...Errr.......
Rrrrrrrr yeah, welcome to the new internet Sir.
 

Calvin27

Eats Squid
Buying bike parts in global market.
Sorry to brst your bubble but shitmano and scam managed to figure that one out. Didn't work out quite so well for the likes of mavic though haha.

When they weren't allowed to put raunchy pictures it was all downhill from there. These days I get more kicks from the injury pics thread.
 

The Duckmeister

Has a juicy midrange
Sorry to brst your bubble but shitmano and scam managed to figure that one out. Didn't work out quite so well for the likes of mavic though haha.
Mainly because the buying public quickly realised that Mavic "product development" is basically non-existent.....
 

Asininedrivel

caviar connoisseur
Which one is being shut? Is it
  • Mountain Biking Australia magazine or
  • Australian Mountain Bike magazine

(I feel it's understandable to have confusion there)

While it's sad to see another print publication going, imo Australian mtb mags have ceased providing much value for a while beyond their occasional half-decent destination features. Revolution's content is 99% blatant advertorials in unreadable layouts, and the writing in AMB is infantile.

The good MTB mags (Dirt, What Mountain Bike and the amusingly irreverent Dirt Rag) have all gone under in the last couple of years so it's hard to see much future for print MTB media currently, market isn't there.
 

ForkinGreat

Knows his Brassica oleracea
The internet ate MTB things like:
  • Buying bike parts in global market.
  • Any MTB print media at upwards of $12 per copy with loads of ads which always got thinner and less frequent as time rolled on.
  • Most MTB printed media comes with a bias as they know well who pays their bills IMHO.
  • The web is just easier once you get over needing to hold paper.
They can't stop it even if they see it was coming. I sit here with bated breath on the next exciting 'multi-platform-based media brand with a strong focus on live activations' too...Errr.......
even with geoblocking, buying parts online is still cheaper than the LBS, generally speaking.

Why pay money to read a regurgitated marketing spiel of a part or a bike in a mag?, when a quick search online will find user reviews, some of which will be biased, but if there are enough reviews of something, the good and bad points will be there to see.

There's a youtuber Angry Snowboarder, who gives his honest opinion on boards, if it rips, he says so, if it's a turd, he says so.

is there someone like that for Bikes? or is it just like motoring "journalism"?
 

Asininedrivel

caviar connoisseur
is there someone like that for Bikes? or is it just like motoring "journalism"?
NSMB is the best imo, or at least the most entertaining / interesting. Lengthy multi-part reviews on bikes and parts that really try and delve into how they work and their suitability. Guy Kevestrian on Bike Radar is pretty good too.

Enduro MTB is the only website I've found that does big multi-bike comparison reviews and generally isn't afraid to shitcan stuff they think is sub-par, but will also occasionally provide a single sentence on why a bike climbs or descends good which isn't overly helpful.
 

rextheute

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Didn't Dirt - sort of become , the gmbn , embn , roady also youtube channel - it had a lot of the journos end up there ?
I admit to watching it ...

But it has become a bit of " don't do this , do this " click bait style stuff
It could be that at present there is not much going on in Bike land
  • the latest i think is Rob Warner , someone and someone else doing a e-trails thing ?
  • or Blake and someone doing a hardtail vs enduro vid .
  • it could also be a tie in with Chain Reaction as the presenters all have nuke proofs and ran the Giga prime - realise earlier than even chain reactions youtube channel.

Like anything , is it real , or promo , or paid content - genuine feedback ?

( i will admit to watching the Nukeproof reactor ST - 'my bike' one - i am a bit keen on that bike .....)
 

Asininedrivel

caviar connoisseur
Didn't Dirt - sort of become , the gmbn , embn , roady also youtube channel - it had a lot of the journos end up there ?
I admit to watching it ...
I tihnk GMBN absorbed a few journalists and their projects. The tall bloke called Doddy (I think) had his own thing that was pretty good actually - Factory Jackson. Also had some of the best photography of any mtb media I've seen, but it's been dormant since he went to GMBN.

GMBN is okaaaay, bit basic sometimes, but newbies have to start somewhere. Their crap bike challenges have a definite Top Gear vibe, worth watching. As was Blake doing the Megaavalanche on a hardtail. From a guess they are either heavily sponsored or a subsidiary of CRC / Nukeproof.

Can't hack Warner outside of World Cup commentary, he's annoying af.
 

Mr Crudley

Glock in your sock
even with geoblocking, buying parts online is still cheaper than the LBS, generally speaking.

Why pay money to read a regurgitated marketing spiel of a part or a bike in a mag?, when a quick search online will find user reviews, some of which will be biased, but if there are enough reviews of something, the good and bad points will be there to see.

There's a youtuber Angry Snowboarder, who gives his honest opinion on boards, if it rips, he says so, if it's a turd, he says so.

is there someone like that for Bikes? or is it just like motoring "journalism"?
There is so much more choice now than having to wait for print media as the only outlet.

Not to only dump only on the local publications, the ones like MTB Action were even worse - ads filled with stupid articles and the obligatory high end unicorns that we all like to see but can never get hold off, well ,that isn't all so bad I guess.

The whole genericness between brands of modern bikes also makes it less exciting IMHO. They have to get down into the fine detail weeds to find things that they like or don't like much of the time.

Death to geoblocking.
 

hellmansam

Likes Bikes and Dirt
will also occasionally provide a single sentence on why a bike climbs or descends good which isn't overly helpful.
Australia's longest serving gun writer explained that as 'damning them with faint praise' when responding to a question on why there were almost never any negative reviews published
 

mtb1611

Seymour
Mountain Biking Australia Magazine has announced in the latest Issue that they are done.
Stating in the Editorial Dominic Unwin states “Yaffa Media have made the difficult decision to cease publishing the quarterly magazine. While COVID-19 hasn’t helped, the change is part of a shift in direction to a more multi-platform-based media brand with a strong focus on live activations.” Whatever the fuck that means.
IMO the formerly great magazine has been going down the gurgler since John Hardwick gave up the number one job.
Is it a sign of the times that print media is going the way of the land-line telephone? Or, in this period of rapid growth of the industry is the magazine simply not good enough to spend the money?
I remember TR at races in the 90's and yeah, you're spot on. JH I remember too, lovely fella.
 
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The Duckmeister

Has a juicy midrange
Regardless of content and quality thereof, print media is a dying breed; in this age of "I want everything yesterday, because now is too late", it's apparently too inconvenient for people to go to a shop and buy a hard copy when it's available in digital form. So sales drop, which kicks off a vicious cycle..... Still need to cover production & distribution costs, but fewer units shipped means increased cover price, more advertising at the expense of actual content, and finding a fragile balance.

Feature-length content is also struggling online, because that same "immediately isn't soon enough" mentality means people struggle to read more than five cryptially truncated words before losing attention.....
 

cokeonspecialtwodollars

Fartes of Portingale
Regardless of content and quality thereof, print media is a dying breed; in this age of "I want everything yesterday, because now is too late", it's apparently too inconvenient for people to go to a shop and buy a hard copy when it's available in digital form. So sales drop, which kicks off a vicious cycle..... Still need to cover production & distribution costs, but fewer units shipped means increased cover price, more advertising at the expense of actual content, and finding a fragile balance.

Feature-length content is also struggling online, because that same "immediately isn't soon enough" mentality means people struggle to read more than five cryptially truncated words before losing attention.....
TL;DR
 
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