Our Humble Beginnings, Nearly Ten Years Old and Still Kicking
The death of print may be greatly exaggerated in these digitally-obsessed times, but my, what a strange era in which to publish a motorbike magazine. Case in a very large script point: the country’s largest circulation motorcycle magazine, Cycle World has just announced a switch to quarterly publishing, reducing from twelve to four the number of magazines it will print each year. For those keeping score, Cycle World was gobbled up by the European media conglomerate Bonnier Corporation a while back and the voracious firm’s appetite didn’t stop there. Shortly thereafter, Bonnier feasted upon most of the biggest motorcycle titles in existence, adding Street Chopper, Motorcycle Cruiser, Motorcyclist, Sport Rider and Dirt Rider to its impressive portfolio. Many of these titles have previously been owned by large, publicly-traded corporations, but bringing them all together under one umbrella – and forcing previously competing journalists to work side-by-side in one office -was about as unprecedented as a right-side kickstarter.
I have something of a inside line of all this business having once had an extensive telephone meeting with Bonnier’s Andrew Leisner, the bigwig running their motorcycle magazine division. He informed he that Bonnier considers print journalism so post mortem that they’d decided as early as 2015 to kill off all their paper magazines in a few short years, convinced that Internet content is the wave of the future. That struck me as odd as in today’s rapidly-changing media landscape, new platforms are introduced and disappear faster than you can say MySpace. Bonnier is so convinced that Americans are through thumbing magazine pages that they’ve decided to kill print editions of off-road bible “Dirt Rider” and “Sport Rider” while they’re also combing cruiser/V-Twin titles “Baggers” and “Hot Bike” into a single bi-monthly magazine.
Now, if you’re in our particular pair of boots, this is a bold- and some would say, foolhardy move. Mr. Leisner has not noticed the continued growth in both circulation and advertising sales of many print magazines from fashion titles to sports and special-interest publications. Sure, the population’s appetite for print has diminished, especially among Millinneals who are fairly addicted to smartphone and loath to look beyond their palms for much of anything. But we at Cafe Racer really dig the permanence and tactile feel of traditional magazines, which provide a source of factual information, gorgeous imagery and convenience that a three-inch cellphone screen can never match. WE still get giddy at the arrival of our favorite print titles in the mail which is far more than we can say about attempting to maneuver the clutter ad advertising scrum that is Cycleworld.com. The future of all this is, like last night’s Super Bowl, hard to predict, but as long as folks are reading Cafe Racer, we’ll keep the paper coming.