[Magazines] Autosport Magazine - Your Opinions (merged)

[MikeM]

I appreciate what your saying Ian but it's the previews that MIGHT attract people to the meeting. I thought these were very poor and without the (paid?) adverts there would have been almost nothing.

[Ian Sowman]

As I said, Richard Rodgers had planned to run a major preview piece but was not able to do so. As you will know, MN runs a meeting preview on most weekends during the year when there is racing action and I have contributed to a three of these this year, two of which were on FF1600. Autosport on the other hand does not typically preview events other than through news stories.

[Aysedasi]

Originally posted by Ian Sowman
Autosport on the other hand does not typically preview events other than through news stories.

Now that is a rather sad state of affairs.

[foreversideways]

Perhaps Autosport see there market now as the armchair Formula one enthusiast and not the UK competitor,which in a way is quite sad.

[Aysedasi]

But there are other armchair enthusiasts out there who would love to read about something other than F1.......

[John McIlroy]

We are working on ways of encouraging more people to go to race meetings in the UK next year. There are some tweaks to the mag over the closed season that should allow us to do this, possibly even by picking a meeting each week to highlight and try to push people towards. Edd is working with me on this so hopefully it will prove useful to all concerned.

Regards,

John

[MikeM]

Now that sounds like good news! Look forward to it.

[ensign14]

Originally posted by John McIlroy
We are working on ways of encouraging more people to go to race meetings in the UK next year.

Could you give me a lift?

[krt917]

Originally posted by John McIlroy
We are working on ways of encouraging more people to go to race meetings in the UK next year. There are some tweaks to the mag over the closed season that should allow us to do this, possibly even by picking a meeting each week to highlight and try to push people towards. Edd is working with me on this so hopefully it will prove useful to all concerned.

John,

I think that one way of doing that would be to increase the length of UK reports, such as those covering the better club/historic events. I know there are space issues, but I've contributed race reports to Autosport before (and hope to do some more) and it can be quite frustrating when you attend a really good meeting, with 8-10 events and some exciting races, and then only get 500-600 words to cover them in. It makes it difficult to convey the quality of certain events.

I certainly support the idea of increasing attendance of UK events.

Regards,
Kevin Turner

[John McIlroy]

Increasing the length of reports? Hmmm haven't heard that one before!

In all seriousness, I'd love to give acres of space to national motorsport - and believe it or not, it's had more pages in 2004 than in 2003, and in 2003 it had more pages than in 2002. But what I'm thinking of in terms of encouraging people to go to meetings is a little more direct than an extra column inch or two on something that's already happened. I don't know if it will work or not and it's an odd time of year to introduce it, but we're going to put it into next week's magazine.

John

[Aysedasi]

Looking forward to that - its about time something encouraged me to visit the circuits again......

[Logrence]

Why give people more **** to flick through?

Why doesn't someone just start up a magazine solely for the club scene? You can read about yourselves as much as you like then!

[Aysedasi]

You'd rather read cover-to-cover F1?

[Ian Sowman]

It's been tried, it failed, and to a large extent it could be superfluous.

[Ian Sowman]

Originally posted by Pete Fenelon
As far as I'm aware "Paul Lawrence" is a house name. I have evidence that at least two people write under that tag.

Pete - I did PM you about this wondering what evidence you had - I've heard nothing as yet...

[Kicking-back]

A very good edition of the magazine today, I thought.



Aside from the Anthony Davidson in a Williams picture!

[Ian Sowman]

I thought it was excellent, I particularly enjoyed the WHT coverage!

[JMeissner]

I liked the Touring Car part

[Ian Sowman]

I noticed that - looked like an interesting feature which I will check out this evening.

[MikeHoyer]

I got a photo in this weeks issue, so I enjoyed it!

But, yeah some good stuff this week.

[Tweed]

I was more disappointed with F1 Racing this time - obviously creating a 'Test Driver of the year ' award to blatantly promote Anthony Davidson! I mean, I agree he deserves a drive, but come on....

[MikeHoyer]

I don't get F1 Racing anymore, tbh I think it's **** now, there is much more to racing than F1 anyway.

F1 racing just seems like a glossy trendy mag, too much lifestyle and stuff, ok their is technical bits, but I don't just want to read about F1, and drivers going shopping and stuff like that.

[Kicking-back]

Don't buy it then

There is a market for a mag like F1 racing - it's always been like that.

[MikeHoyer]

I don't buy it, haven't for about a year

[krt917]

Originally posted by JMeissner
I liked the Touring Car part

Yes, that was good, though my personal favourite was the DBR9 stuff, but then I'd always say that!

Seriously, I'd like to add my voice to those who thought the last issue (11/11) was a good one. I virtualy read it from cover to cover and it's been a while since I did that, especially in mid-November!