What's Next For Auto Action?

[GTRMagic]

I know that we often laugh at Auto Action (or its more widely used name "Auto Fiction") because of its challenges in content, in accuracy (or lack of!), in chasing the big news stories (or not bothering!).. but with the loss of Motorsport eNews for a multitude of reasons, the AA publication is the remaining weekly newspaper for the sport...

As part of PBL Media, and as such the Nine Entertainment Company (NEC), AA is part of a stable of magazine products that range from Womens Weekly to Zoo Weekly to Cleo..! And as part of NEC... the owners of that organisation has been in the news recently for having to plough more funds into the business to keep the lenders from the doors!

So not an ideal basis for an eclectic motorsport magazine perhaps. Especially with former motor noter ACP Magazines boss Phil Scott also out of the NEC bulding and into retirement...

To the facts...

From their own ACP homepage Here



I cant believe that AA has fallen to such a volume level. 10,214 weekly readers (on average) audited.. I can recall only a few years ago this was over 16,000...

Speedcafe.com by comparison, has 8,195 likes on its facebook page.. and more than likely many many more in its online readership...

While ACP's Rugby League Week manages to find 17,055 paying punters to buy their magazine each week, in what is likely to be a largely Eastern Seaboard distribution.

ACP also owns Australian Motorcycle News, which is a bi-weekly magazine, that manages to find 21,009 purchasers every fortnight, in what you might consider to be a less popular subject.

Back to mainstream for a minute for comparison, a product such as Take 5 magazine, also an ACP publication, manages to find 209,319 purchasers each week for its crossword puzzle wrapped in feel good stories... almost 21 times the readership for arguably a lot less time sensitivity & news...

So.. has the rot set in? Will NEC seek a new parent for the magazine? Who might buy it?

And perhaps on a more positive note... what could they do to improve the AA magazine?

Can AA generate the same kinds of stories and depth that was there in the 'good old days'? Will this improve the level of readership? And perhaps the magazine's survival?

Could Auto Action create an online presence to rival Speedcafe.com? Is there room for two of these professional players in the Australian market?

Whaddaya reckon?

[david5]

I gave it away after reading it for 28 years. It has become the Womens Day for V8SC fans. The research on anything else is terrible. Being on holidays & being wet in Qld I picked up the most recent issues & it just reenforced my opinion.

[rich07]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

but with the loss of Motorsport eNews for a multitude of reasons, the AA publication is the remaining weekly newspaper for the sport...

Tis a sad day indeed when thats the case.

If AF want to grow they need to work on the quality of the mag, until that happens I aint picking up AF again. Ditto if they want to be known as AA and not AF.

[Oldtony]

Originally Posted by david5

. It has become the Womens Day for V8SC fans. The research on anything else is terrible. .

Exactly!
And the problem is that the V8SC bulk demographic is not realy interested in the background team news stories, the technical stories or even the celebrity stuff around the "stars" of the series.
There is very rarely anything of a genuinely news nature leading to a round of beat-ups being standard fare.
It either doesn't cover, or doesn't research other forms of motorsport where they might get an alternate mag buying audience. Only looked at occaisional copies, but have they done anything that could be called analysis over the past couple of years?
And of course it has Nine links and the major TV player is Seven. No opportunity for cross promotion.

[coln72]

Haven't looked at AA for years either. Once they stopped covering state level events, I lost interest.

[St00ge]

Originally Posted by coln72

Haven't looked at AA for years either. Once they stopped covering state level events, I lost interest.

they do have a state racing section, it has been in there for quiet a while..

[Reload]

Originally Posted by St00ge

they do have a state racing section, it has been in there for quiet a while..

Which isn't too bad a read.

[GeoffR]

In the early days of AA (B&W fortnightly) I couldn't wait for each edition to come out. When it went to a glossy weekly everything seemed to change and I've rarely bought it since. As mentioned above, the coverage of State level events in the early days was quite comprehensive (ie. detailed reports of State rally championship events even), whereas the current State event section covers a couple of pages with a couple of paragraphs for each event, I still flick through it in the newsagents! Maybe AA should go 'back to the future'.

[Rob Bailey]

Originally Posted by david5

I gave it away after reading it for 28 years. It has become the Womens Day for V8SC fans. The research on anything else is terrible. Being on holidays & being wet in Qld I picked up the most recent issues & it just reenforced my opinion.

I'm in my early 50s,read it from about the age of 15 or so.Gave it away about 7 years ago.
I get all news news of Ten tenths or Natsoft.

[GreenMachine]

When I found that the part I was most interested in was the classifieds, that was the end for me - God knows how many years (decades?) ago!

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Rob Bailey

I'm in my early 50s,read it from about the age of 15 or so.Gave it away about 7 years ago.
I get all news news of Ten tenths or Natsoft.

Pretty much the same for me - although I probably gave it away for the most part earlier than that - fully giving it away was about 7 years ago though.

It was bad enough when it ran so many headlines with a question mark ("Larry in a Ford?" for example) but it just seemed to get further away from really understanding the game. It's one thing when journos get facts wrong (which they all do) but it's another thing entirely when they have the right facts but draw totally ridiculous conclusions due to them not really understanding the attitude and motivations of the people working in the sport.

AA has been particularly guilty of that for some time - Fogarty included. So reading any "in depth" article became an exercise in frustration.

Don't know how they turn it around nor do I know how they make it appealing to a wider audience but the declining circulation makes it a virtual irrelevance.

[St00ge]

tough crowd, aways grab a copy for something to read when "dropping the Cosby kids off at the pool"

[david5]

Originally Posted by St00ge

tough crowd, aways grab a copy for something to read when "dropping the Cosby kids off at the pool"

Well at least you can fold it into paper boats.

[krypto71]

I generally only buy AA now if there is an driver interview or article I'm interested in keeping.

In as far as news goes, you really can't beat the speed of the internet.

I usually find any significant news stores from AA and ENews retold here within a day or so of publication anyway.

[alfacors]

MNews tried to do the State Level coverage too with a mini-mag liftout but it soon died. In reality, while in a perfect world those of us who participate in state level competition would love to see reports and images plastered into a National publication, the reality is that the majority of people who buy MN or AA don't care what's happening in Combined Touring, or IPRA, or State FFord, etc etc. I seriously doubt whether there would be any significant increase in the circulation of a publication if it included State coverage, certainly not enough to offset the additional pages required each week, along with the people to submit reports and images from each and every state level round.

[D.R.T.]

Originally Posted by St00ge

tough crowd, aways grab a copy for something to read when "dropping the Cosby kids off at the pool"

Paul Morris wasnt too interested.

[Jacal]

Interesting Figures I'd like to make a couple of comments

Firstly I read AA back in the 80's / 90's after the demise of racing car news and then went away to read Motorsport News as I preferred it as a broader publication as well as it having a format that was easier to read (smaller) and on better quality paper at the time (ok I'm attracted by bright and shiny things). Once that publication went digital I stopped reading it mainly because I sit at a computer most of the day at work and when I go to the park at lunchtime to get out of the office it's much easier, and better for the eyes, to read a paper / magazine than a computer so I went back to AA. The electronic version of Motorsport news initially didn't print well, my office technology was way behind that of a professional printer, and then when they made it pay access only it was too much hassle to get it digitally, so didn't bother. I still get Racecar Engineering in print form rather than digital despite it being available in both for a number of years for exactly the same reasons, let this be my warning to the AA publisher if they are thinking of going digital.

Secondly AA covers V8's in super minute detail with a bunch of Womans Day style information and then touches on the rest of the motorsport world fairly lightly. I note that there has been some mention of State level coverage, as a competitor in NSW FF the coverage is woeful. Victoria seems to be covered fairly well whilst ours is either non-existent, incomplete or edited like the Daily Telegraph, ie there are 6 inches of space but the article is 10 inches long so we'll cut the middle 4 inches in the middle of a sentence and join the two ends together, the reader can make sense of the rest of it. This despite, I believe, us providing a fairly substantial summary of the meeting. Similarly QLD, WA, SA seem to get a raw deal with even less coverage, as for the NT I have no idea if they have a state series as I don't recall ever seeing an article or results on it at all.

Despite this I still buy it most weeks because it is the only available source of motorsport information weekly, and it is on paper which I can just pick up, flick through and read any time, any where.

[racer69]

AA's slip from 'substance' to 'glam' has been going on since the late-90s

I still buy it, probably mostly because i have since i was at school, and it is generally an interesting read i find, but i rarely read it more than once.

I just wish the writers would be abit more careful in some of the stories they do, particularly the historical one's.... I recall the article about 'Baby Bertha', where they constantly (ie...more than once in the article) referred to the team boss as Bill 'D'lydenstein rather than Blydenstein, trivial i guess, but a silly error none the less

[david5]

Originally Posted by racer69

AA's slip from 'substance' to 'glam' has been going on since the late-90s

I still buy it, probably mostly because i have since i was at school, and it is generally an interesting read i find, but i rarely read it more than once.

I just wish the writers would be abit more careful in some of the stories they do, particularly the historical one's.... I recall the article about 'Baby Bertha', where they constantly (ie...more than once in the article) referred to the team boss as Bill 'D'lydenstein rather than Blydenstein, trivial i guess, but a silly error none the less

Every issue I've picked up infrequently as I do, these errors keep occurring. In the current issue the article on the teams that have dominated the ATCC/V8stupidcars has a picture of the Moffat cars. Unfortunately the year of domination was 1977 & the photo is from 1978.

[Chris - Melb]

Originally Posted by david5

Every issue I've picked up infrequently as I do, these errors keep occurring. In the current issue the article on the teams that have dominated the ATCC/V8stupidcars has a picture of the Moffat cars. Unfortunately the year of domination was 1977 & the photo is from 1978.

Trouble is, most staff working for motorsport magazines these days weren't even born in 1987, never mind 1977!

For me, Auto Action still covers stuff either not available on the Internet, or at least, in more detail.

Sure there are a lot of errors creeping in, but they must be under pressure for resources and time these days. Remember that circa 1977 Auto Action came out on a Friday, and even then it was only once a fortnight!

I wouldn't be surprised if Auto Action had a spike in readership now that ENews has gone. Its news may not be so 'old news', as it was so often the case when ENews had already covered it on Monday.

If $5.95 is too much to pay to recline in a comfy chair and read about your favourite sport for an hour or more, then life must be pretty tough.

Long live Auto Action!

[djr81]

Obviously neither AA (Nor anyone else) has enough staff to send them to club level events of any sort. I don think that would come as a surprise to anyone. My worry is the lack of staff at magazines and papers in general pretty much prevents in depth articles on any subject. It is not just AA that suffers.

With regard to the club content in AA. Their guidelines are simple. Submissions are to be 200 words & will be cut down to a maximum of 220. Results are encouraged (they generally print a couple pages of them) as are photos. Articles should be sent before COB on Tuesday for publishing the following Wednesday.

[Mixer]

I've always bought AA and Enews when it became available, but Mnews as a monthly magazine is a bit of a joke so I think we'll see the death of it here.

I travel a lot so reading Mnews on the iPad is pretty good. I've also experimented with buying AA digitally, its like $4.50 and if you buy iTunes credit on special (2 x $20 cards for $30), its pretty cheap...

[Just Do It!]

Can't help but thinking where all this leaves the market leader, V8Xtra, in the world?

[david5]

Originally Posted by Chris - Melb

Trouble is, most staff working for motorsport magazines these days weren't even born in 1987, never mind 1977!

For me, Auto Action still covers stuff either not available on the Internet, or at least, in more detail.

Sure there are a lot of errors creeping in, but they must be under pressure for resources and time these days. Remember that circa 1977 Auto Action came out on a Friday, and even then it was only once a fortnight!

I wouldn't be surprised if Auto Action had a spike in readership now that ENews has gone. Its news may not be so 'old news', as it was so often the case when ENews had already covered it on Monday.

If $5.95 is too much to pay to recline in a comfy chair and read about your favourite sport for an hour or more, then life must be pretty tough.

Long live Auto Action!

So your saying that if AA are doing an article on soething that happened before they were born, they shouldn't have to do research ?

Doesn't it worry you that some of the stuff that you read for your entertainment & education is wrong ?

[sizzle]

Originally Posted by Just Do It!

Can't help but thinking where all this leaves the market leader, V8Xtra, in the world?

V8 what?