[Magazines] Autosport Magazine - Your Opinions (merged)

[PaulSands]

I've been noticing the gradual tabloidisation of Autosport over the last year or so but with this weeks "100 Grestest Crashes" supplement I think they've finally landed in the s**t. I cannot believe they have resorted to such cheap sensationilism. I had just subscribed, purely to get access to the online version, but I am calling up today and am going to cancel it before I've even received a copy.

[Peter Mallett]

Are you serious?

[PaulSands]

Yes...I was kinda just going to be mildly miffed till I saw that it had Barichello's '94 Imola shunt. I cant believe for the purpose of entertainment they have included something that is bound to revive memories of a weekend from hell. It was at that point I binned it.

[johnw]

This started with the "Death at Imola" headline after Senna's accident. I wrote to the then editor Bruce Jones complaining about tabloid tactics and was told that I was being oversensitive.
Seems to have come full circle.

[mattmarvell]

When I saw this previewed in last weeks autosport i thought to myself ..bet this is gonna cause some uproar on the ten-tenths forums..

Paulsands you mention entertainment,
That’s why people par-take in the sport/watch the sport for entertainment - pure and simple

Of course there’s different levels as in all things in life some people watch for the science others for the thrills and spills and some may even enjoy the sport for the driver skill

Crashes happen , JV used to be a bit of a show off when it came to shunts and so if a driver isn’t that worried about the effects and can get off on them why can’t the public.

Agreed that it may be slightly tasteless to show the RB pics but depends on the spin that they have added to the pic.

Should we not marvel at these drivers that are god like and don’t bat a eyelid to get back in a car (for there own entertainment it must be said)

[Sato san]

I still like Autosport alot ...mainly for the national section at the back rather than the Main F1 section .......

I have to slighlty agree with Paul , the tabloid style of the magazine nowdays does spoil it alot IMO ....

i dont like to see these rubbish headlines like "SCHU BEAUTY ! "...etc etc ...i think its tacky ..

in saying that ....i still enjoy getting my copy in the post every Thursday morning ....im not ready to turn my back on it yet...although , i do admit that it does iritate me more now days than it used to..

[Adam43]

I'm not a fan of it, but they don't so it every week. As much as you can achieve it, but it was done 'tastefully' (Rubens shunt excepted, perhaps?).

And it includes the last lap of Monza in 1991 with the flipping Minardi. Frankly this is mentioned a lot on ten-tenths, I guess most members this it is worthy of mention.

I think the amount Autosport does this sort of crash article does not actually reflect the interest in it. The publish far less, in an effort to keep it sane. However every now and again is OK.

It struck me that there was a crash more impressive than some of the ones shown. Solberg's battered Subaru looked like it had been through the wars.

[Admin: Not really F1, there are many more non-F1 crashes, moved to, er, Trackside]

[ensign14]

Um, as for tabloidesque Autosport, does anyone remember Booby Galore?

[PaulSands]

When everybody is crying out for greater coverage of anything other than F1 it seems particularly perverse to fill 12 prime pages with something like this.

[jminsh]

Originally posted by ensign14
Um, as for tabloidesque Autosport, does anyone remember Booby Galore?

Ah Catchpole brilliant times, it was a sad loss when Barry Foley passed away.

[Andrew Kitson]

And 'Motorsport' goes red-top too.
What is going on?????
I used to wait in anticipation for the postman to drop Autosport through the door, now sometimes I don't even look at it until the weekend so I know it's gone drastically downhill.
Might have to cancel it aswell, and I have most of them back to 1957, thanks to my father's collection.
They need to get Roebuck and Pye back on board as staff, rather than contract and I know that they wonder where it's going too....
I mean... the young age of some of those staff writers!! Their first contact with the sport was probably with the 90s stock car world of the BTCC and they know about motorsport?
Autosport used to be the bible, not anymore.

RANT OVER..

[spider]

Well, John McIlroy occasionally enters this forum, so I'm sure he'll put forward their reasons for doin' it. Some crashes can look spectacular, and I know a few people who love seein' a spectaculer-looking, driver-sparing crash. Remember when I had a nice off when karting and managed to fall out the kart - my mate said it made his week seein' something that spectacular, and has since taken up karting...!?! Some people see the sheer force of a big accident as part of the thrill of the speed of the sport. Ok, some crashes perhaps shouldn't be used - RB for example, but some, like Fittapaldi's flip at Monza 93 was impressive stuff!

[ss_collins]

If you don't like it why not try MN

[Andrew Kitson]

we do!!

[diz]

Originally posted by Sato san
i dont like to see these rubbish headlines like "SCHU BEAUTY ! "...etc

Nothing changes. They - and MN - have always tried the 'clever, punny headlines.
Some genuine examples from the 70s' :
1. Female, sometime F1 driver, Lella Lombardi has suffered a few mechanical gremlins in recent weeks, so we got 'Lella has difficult period'
2. Jochen Mass had two or three potential drives lined up for the following F1 season and hadn't decided who to sign for, hence 'Mass Debates'
3. And this one nearly got the hack sacked. The Richard Seaman Trophy meeting at Oulton Park took place in very hot and humid weather conditions. 'Hot and Sticky Seaman'

I think it is also fair to say - looking at other threads about Autosport - that the readership isn't very happy with the content, layout and general F1 bias of the magazine. Day by day, they get further away from the ideals of their founder, Gregor Grant.

[ensign14]

Personally, I blame Michael Heseltine. But he is to blame for most things.

Problem is that the margins are too tight...why buy Autosport when you can get most results gratis on the Net? And if you don't then newspapers cover things well these days, with quality journalists like Maurice Hamilton and Richard Williams who (I assume) get a lot more working for something with circulation in the hundreds of thousands daily than something going to a hardcore, ergo the new journos are a lot younger and at a lower stage of the development curve.

And even without this there are all sorts of other things to spend money on. In the 60s, was Autosport the only source of news? MotorSport the only source of considered journalism?

As it is, AS is still a valuable resource, even with only potted reports, so I'll continue to get it. But there is a dumbing down with EVERYTHING these days, it seems.

[Andrew Kitson]

Or how about the Autosport headline last year, something like 'why this is the most important car in F1 ever'.
Funny that - the MP4-18 didn't race did it? OK it might have been had it worked but I bet the headline writer remembers that one!
But MN has had it's faults too - Bentley won Le Mans for the first time in 73 years and the headline is about some non-champ BTCC race that was planned for the following year (which never happened!). The Bentley story was relegated to the bottom of the page.

[Adam43]

My general feeling is like Andrew's. Although I'd stop short of RANT status.

Because:

Originally posted by PaulSands
When everybody is crying out for greater coverage of anything other than F1...

This is the issue though. It is not everyone. Ten-tenths, or indeed the rest of the motorsport world we mix with, do not represent 'everyone'.

To a certain extent Autosport are responding to their readership (or potential readership).

This is what happens when you make something for everyone. Are, democracy! However I do feel that the alternative is possibly nothing.

My type of racing isn't in Autosport enough is a common complaint round here. This borders on being 'I want a specialist magazine. Trouble is that it is difficult to sustain that. Specialist Club mags, specialist Sportscar Mags, etc... These are all things I want, but experience seems to be telling us they don't work (although I will support any effort to make one work). At least Autosport stays around.

There are some alternatives. dailysportscar.com allows me some extra sportscar reading. Circuit driver gives me some club level reading (although I reckon it is just sold on the back of the guides).

[Kicking-back]

Autosport is good at what it does.

The problem, for many of us on here is that what it does is not what we want it to do.

But research and sales figures will always dictate the shape of things, that's life.

[spider]

F1 sells, as much as we all berate the sport, it's the category the public see as the portrayal of motorsport. If F1 is dull, the public say motorsport is boring also!? F1 has widespread appeal, and an issue of Autosport is more likely to sell with BUTTON GOES TO WILLIAMS than ANTHONY REID WINS ROUND 8 OF THE BTCC CHAMPIONSHIP! Sensationalist titles do work on the newsstand - for the average person who's perusing for a 'read' the one-lined pun grabs your attention, a long, drawn-out facts-only title doesn't jump out at you. The less words, the larger they can be on the front cover, and therefore the larger the impact. The front cover doesn't try to appeal to subscribers, but to the general public - it's a web, trying to catch new readers – it’s an advert for new custom. I totally understand the sensationalist titles on the covers as it is all about IMPACT.

The CRASHES supplement is an addition, that doesn’t affect the normal editorial balance, and again is an attempt to appeal to a wider readership. Like it or not crashes are spectacular, and you’ll always have lads lookin’ at them. Think of all those lads mags that have all sorts of sections with accidents, when-things-go wrong etc – it sells, and people look at those pics. It’s like fishing, with the supplement the bait. If it succeeds by increasing newsstand sales by 1000 for this week, and then the following weeks sales stabilise at over 500 more than the regular sales figures then it’s worked…

[JJ Jet Plane]

Good points Spider, and if Autosport can win those extra readers, then hopefully we get new fans of the sport, circulation goes up, these new people get to find out about BTCC, F3 etc, we get more fans at the tracks and the whole sport benefits.

Everyone wants their branch of the sport covered in greater detail, but let's not forget no-one has an automatic right to coverage. I remember when Autosport gave club racing greater coverage in the 70s and 80s, but the quality of the club meetings was better in those days. Also, the coverage of international championships (other than F1, F2 and the World Sportscar series) was much more sketchy in those days. You certainly NEVER got the depth of coverage that you get these days on IRL, Champ Car, Euro F3 etc.

[Adam43]

Originally posted by spider
Sensationalist titles do work

What like

Autosport Finally Hits The Gutter

[PaulSands]

ouch

[acf8181]

a couple of the crash pics maybe should have been left out (such as the mitsibushi rallying accident where the co-driver was seriously injured, and barrichellos), but if the driver walks away theres nothing wrong in printing them IMO.

crashes are part of motorsport...heck, if you buy the offical 1982 f1 review you get to see two drivers die...now that makes autosports supplement pale into insignificance.

[PaulSands]

I'm obviously being a snob and a bit sensitive...I just see it as a general trend away from something that used to indispensable to a more throw away read in 10 minutes magazine...should I ask if I can get the thread title changed to "Jolly Bad Show by Autosport" or "I Say Chaps That's Just Not Cricket"