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Racing Post drop in sales
Racing Post drop in sales
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Replies: 199
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come to think of it gor... yes you were
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i buy the post for one reason only - the form.
Over the years I seem to be the only one on this site that feels more comfortable reading the form on a piece of paper where I can quickly scan down each form line, see the winning form,ground, marks etc. i do use the life's website for this but it must take some of you hours to read a whole card on line let alone several cards. Now the post have published the whole paper on line I may well go down this route but I still can't get past having the whole thing in front of you. I am not into speed figures, third party assessments etc. I need to get a feel from what they have run up against etc. Am i becoming a dinosaur or wtf is going on. |
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ps it takes me about 4 hours to read three cards just buying the paper
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I have the membership online but have not bought the paper for 6 weeks now. I remember when it first ca,me out day one of the Craven with Sonic Lady on the front, I used to buy it every day. I don't know why I stoppedpartfrom I jusrt was not reading it. Newspapers are yesterdays news.
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GT-MOLE
Just delved into the pile - and, coincidently, pulled out the 1000th issue (1.01 I could not do that again !)  -Monday July 3rd 1989 You are possibly talking about the written content and columns - whereas I have always been far more concerned about the Cards and Form displays. Apart from the Main meeting of the day - the other Cards were clumsy, difficult to 'absorb', with DEEP Bold Horse names and weights - which all appeared to merge into a myriad of Black. Similarly, the Form was overwhelmed with Box Outliners and more Black typeface - thus making the Form pages foreboding, rather than welcoming. |
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the life was different gear to the post in terms of layout and content when it came to form.
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You could well be right onlooker,rose tinted specs etc.I was away overseas for most of the 80s and prior always used and never bought the Life.(only bookies copies)
I think probably it was the Tabloid format and ease of use/reading that made it attractive that made me buy it for the racing.As a broadsheet reader I found it suited fine,in the same breath though it was imo informative and interesting as a read away from pure form etc. Was worth buying and I did even the Sunday editions,they had a good balance.Now it seems they have lost the original aim or am I just being a grumpy old git? |
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There's only one way out - invest in some proper journalism.
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GT Mole - what's happening, imho, is that they have contrived to shift their target audience away from smarter punters and in line with what is now the bookmaking industry's only target market, to create a newspaper for losing punters, by losing punters.
This is why Steve Palmer, a compulsive and losing gambler who bets on everything, but has a story to tell, is now very much the Poster Boy for this publication - they are actively seeking to recondition punters' aspirations of gambling from hoping to win, to not expecting to win, but having 'entertainment' while losing your money to the bookmaking industry. As such the unmentionable one, a self confessed mug punter, whose weekly column is often laughably naive, is the perfect fit. As I have said many times on here, the evidence is all over the place that their relationship with one of the big three in particular runs far deeper than just media platform and advertiser, and I would strongly suspect that the company concerned were one of the investors in the private equity deal which saw the publication sold by the Mirror Group - hence the transformation from punters' friend to what is now little short of a trade paper for the bookmaking industry.... |
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I'm with doantwin2easy - I could never get to grips with reading form online and really need the paper version. It allows me to write my own notes by the side and even the shopping list on the edge of the paper . Online reading seems to take so much longer and the abbreviated form in the paper (with just the first 3 in the race shown) is much more user-friendly.
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i disagree, the form in the paper tells you very little comparatively i think
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Millhouse has it spot on.....see the Tom Segal 'advice' in the piece from his Pricewise book quoted in the Post the other day.
It will also be interersting to see if Howard Wright stays retired for long. |
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THEY SHOULD HAVE STORIES IN NOW AND AGAIN ABOUT PEOPLE WHOS LOST ALL THEIR MONEY AND HOW THEIR WIVES ARE HAPPY NOW THEVE DEVORCED THEM
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Mrs Diddys letter would be interesting Do Wah' !
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YES SHE LOOKED 10 YEARS YOUNGER WHEN IT WAS GRANTED ,STORIES LIKE THAT WOULD INTEREST WOMEN READERS ,IM NOW OFF I DONT WANT TO HIGHJACK THIS THREAD ,THIS IS MY SECOND POST
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millhouse very good and enlightening post about the losing punter and the entertainment factor - that's kind of the Vegas casino model, too, i suppose
I don't think Alan Byrne's group of investors included any bookies but i don't know for sure, i thought they were more irish newspaper investors, i think haigh had a fair idea of who they were and he has never mentioned any direct bookie involvement onlooked the blood on the floor at the Sporting Life was obviously bad and i don't know anyone from the Post who wanted it, indeed there was no need for the whole thing to happen, it was actually some of the Sheikh's advisors who were never keen on the Post and always pro the Life who I believe encouraged the deal to go through when if they had just taken more time there would have been a management buyout the irony, a bitter one i know for the likes of yourself and/or former colleagues, is that the main sufferers were the Life's staff not those at the Post it should not be forgotten who awful the Life's hierarchy were towards the Post when it first kicked off, and the hostility they encouraged. |
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The Racing Post got into bed with the bookies
The Government got into bed with the bookies The BhB got into bed with the bookies Guess what all three are being screwed . |
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Bought a copy of the WEEKENDER recently, after around a 10 year gap. The editorial content in that is even more cheaply produced.
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I'm starting to think after reading this thread
that there is a gap in the market and the time is ripe for The Sporting Life or The Sporting Chronicle to make a comeback! Proper racing journalists, independence from bookmakers, we would all have to promise to buy a copy every day |
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Swift-tuttle. One problem in unearthing decent racing journalistss in this day and age is the fact that young interns have to sit infront of a computer screen all day then make the occasional phone call to verify "facts" prior to publication.
Most of the old time writers/columists either came from a horsey background or spent many hours cultivating contacts within the industry. Publications such as the Racing Post, Weekender etc. obviously feel that finding staff of that expertise is far too costly, prefering to sign up youngsters fresh from "media studies" courses who are prepared to work for comparative peanuts compared with the well informed characters such as Sir Peter O'Sullevan, Richard Baerlein and many other outstanding journalists of yesteryear. New Racing Post readers soon realise they are being sold an expensive product, offering very little in the way of a proper insight into the game - hence their continuing fall in circulation. |
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st there was a time when i bought both papers and thought nothing of it now i only buy the post on decent racing days.
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I'm starting to think after reading this thread
that there is a gap in the market and the time is ripe for The Sporting Life or The Sporting Chronicle to make a comeback! Proper racing journalists, independence from bookmakers, we would all have to promise to buy a copy every day i'll tell you were i'm at with this....i'm out! |
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too expensive for most
imagine spending over £2 on your daily newspaper somedays |
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what a shame but they seem to be out of touch, spending serious money on the i pad app when most of us do not use one is a mistake, you can be to far in front with new technology of your readership it could take years for us all to get a ipad.
The only way to get the readership back is to give the customers what they want interesting articles from readers and freelance racing journalists a systems page, a punters readers page, make us buy it just like you could not miss the handicap book every week because you could gleam a idea or at least read something interesting about betting and gambling, most of us are not interested in a day in the life of a jockey or what the trainer has for breakfast i bought the post from day one until 4 years ago i picked mine up everyday when i went to the newsagents he had 5 days posts waiting for me, it was time to call it a day because i had stopped reading nothing interesting i would love to read it every day again but when all it contains is form then you can get that on line, what you cant get on line is decent ideas/systems/gambling and decent jounalist gambling/racing articles. the market is crying out for a decent article led racing/gambling paper but due to start up costs i dont think we are going to get one |
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par i don't mind spending £2 pound on certain days because i like the form spread out on paper in front of me and have done for a lifetime i would much rather it was not the post but that's the way it is.
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Heres the deal Racing Post costs about £600 per year
Ruk / Sky sports costs £540 thats £1,140 before you have a bet Ok ATR is free well you would not pay anything for that rubbish . lets get back to £1.140 at 8% profit on turnover you need to bet about £16.000 per year just to pay for The Racing Post and RUK .. Them are the facts..make your own mind up ..zipper |
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midnight line
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One thing is for sure, no one at the racing post will take any blame for a drop in sales.
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There are not enough people interested enough in the sport anymore for a new racing daily to work; no matter how well produced.
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Don't agree Verb. For a start, there are many thousands employed in racing who'd buy the paper if it was sold at a reasonable cost and written by journalists who were in tune with the industry.
Ordinary punters would likewise cough up for a half-decent news sheet as opposed to something stuffed full of bookmaker-inspired PR material or trainers quoted about which horse runs where. It's lazy, cheap journalism - pure and simple, in my view. |
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If they concentrated on increasing circulation
They'd attract more advertising To reduce the "Post" to an affordable price Instead of shooting themselves in the foot. |
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Trouble is they don't survive from subs alone and advertising is a necessary evil. Apart from bookmakers who else is likely to advertise in a racing paper. You've guessed it - no-one.
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the problem for any racing publication is the overheads
life was viable so long as it just stuck to the south chronicle viable so as it had the north I'm not quite sure what the reason was but i think it was the Life which went for a national market and put the Chronicle to bed but in the end the cost of getting to all ends of the UK, plus the cost of garnering the info for a specialist product, meant there was ever only room for one paper and it was the Post which replaced the Life and now it, like all papers, is struggling don't forget the Post's current owners paid far far too much for it and are having to pay off the money they borrowed to purchase it and this from a lower revenue stream than expected (unless the online Post is coming up trumps but unlike mooted above, I somehow doubt it) |
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Happy Valley. You are right about overheads, of course. But it's obvious that the Post isn't providing a product that many racing followers feel is value for money.
I submit that the only way to increase it's circulation is to improve the standard of editorial content. Unless the management faces up to this, then the UK will be without a specialist daily racing paper within a few years |
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PinHooker - I'm right with you about the editorial content, i have posted to that effect on this thread and many othr times on here and a few years ago I said the same to the powers that be at the Post about the lack of proper news in the paper compared to previous years, it had just become a load of iffs and maybes about running plans, sometimes a page would be led by what wasn't going to happen, ie something a non-runner, ok if it's frankel but it wasn't
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(unless the online Post is coming up trumps but unlike mooted above, I somehow doubt it)
They may do alright out of the website, but I can't see this iPad push being anything but a white elephant. How many people are going to do any serious form study on a tablet? |
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You could have any amount of decent columnists and features etc .... BUT -
the ONLY way to RECOVER circulation sales is ................................. COVER PRICE They would HAVE to HALVE the price - in order to get people actually BUYING it {b]again[/b] - to, THEN, get them hooked - AGAIN - on decent regular writers. Merely announcing - 'W'eve signed X, Y and Z to write regular columns' - will NOT reverse the dowmnward Circulation Sales spiral, without a DRASTIC REDUCTION in Cover PRICE. |
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Dr Gonzo 18 Oct 12 20:03
' .....I can't see this iPad push being anything but a white elephant. How many people are going to do any serious form study on a tablet? -------------- Agreed, Gonzo.... certainly NOT ME. But it now appears that BOTH the Racing Post and Bookmaker's TARGET audience/customers - are NO longer, "serious form study, " punters.  |
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They could make it free and I still wouldnt touch with the current incumbents,double the price and get Sir Clement and Paul Haigh back and I would happily buy it,getting decent racereaders/summaries and it might would be a bonus.
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go in bookies--hog the paper for 90 mins
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