End of the road for Autosport?

[Londoner]

Some very worrying rumours swirling around this evening regarding Motorsport Network potentially killing off the Autosport brand, along with F1 Racing and Motorsport News.

This would be a severe and potentially terminal blow to motorsport journalism if true.

[rachel1990]

Oh god, I hope not- As a loyal reader (and buyer) of F1 Racing, I will be absolutely gutted. Such a great magazine and has been a big part of F1 for me for about 10 years.

[Ataxia]

To purely nip any speculation in the bud, it's just print that's closing. MN/F1R might find buyers, which I really hope they do, but otherwise the presses will be turned off at some point. We don't know when, though.

I'd ask you not to speculate too heavily, especially when we ourselves don't know what's going to happen in the medium-term.

[mario]

Oh god, I hope not- As a loyal reader (and buyer) of F1 Racing, I will be absolutely gutted. Such a great magazine and has been a big part of F1 for me for about 10 years.

It is a worrying sign, but at the same time the traditional print media has been under pressure for some time and the abundance of "rumour mill" sites out there seem to have eroded the traffic that the Autosport site used to have, and with it eroded the sources of income it had.

To some extent, there is the problem that, with the sale of Autosport to the Motorsport Network a few years ago, you effectively have two outlets under the same roof that now do the same job - and that makes it hard for Autosport to justify itself in some ways.

[dr-baker]

Autosport or it didn't happen... Oh wait...

EDIT:

ADDITION: https://www.autosport.com/netw/news/146 ... l-approach
Motorsport Network prioritising digital media, and as of this week, will be charging £10.99 per print issue of Autosport. So the magazine isn't dead yet, but at that price...

[Rob Dylan]

It's a big shame for me for the simple reason that "autosport or didn't happen" is a phrase for a reason. I use the website for the very reason that it's one of the only ones I can genuinely trust in terms of the silly season. I can think of almost no times they have put out false headlines, and only really post things that are actually happening. Therefore, as its print version disappears and it basically becomes a clone of motorsport.com, I guess it will probably disappear in favour of the latter. I just hope the latter has the same reputation and trustworthiness, because if it doesn't I don't know what official motorsport media to follow that is trustworthy.

[Row Man Gross-Gene]

Well this really sucks to hear. To me, it’s like the New York Times or Wall Street Journal of the motor sport sphere. I really hope things get turned around.

Rob, I think that you can trust Motor Sport Magazine as a source as well. It is not motorsport.com, but rather motorsportmagazine.com. I subscribe to the print edition and love it. The Grand Prix editor is Mark Hughes, who, like practically all of the big name journalists in racing came up through Autosport at one point.

If I could afford to subscribe to autosport as well, I would. Unrelated, but I was saddened to hear of Autosport’s Henry Hope-Frost’s passing last year at a young age. He was a true enthusiast.

[dr-baker]

So Autosport magazine survived the short-term price increase, but now, in light of the world pandemic, it has now paused printing of the paper edition for the first time since its inception in 1950. There has been emphasis on it being only a pause, and will resume along with F1.

A few thoughts of me and others that I have read on Twitter:

I do hope it is genuinely temporary.

What if BTCC and other series start up before F1 - will they resume printing earlier for them?

Why don't they cover the multitude of online racing series? There have been some interesting headlines there, particularly including Lando Norris (positive), and Kyle Larson (not so positive...)

Their news published on their site: https://www.autosport.com/mag/news/1492 ... d-pandemic

[Ataxia]

Why don't they cover the multitude of online racing series? There have been some interesting headlines there, particularly including Lando Norris (positive), and Kyle Larson (not so positive...)

The readership demographic for the magazine is in an older age bracket compared to the website, so it wouldn't sustain the magazine through the current period. The main thing is news-stand sales - people aren't going to shops, so they're not buying magazines in shops. Advertisers are also, understandably, contributing less given other businesses are struggling.

[dr-baker]

Why don't they cover the multitude of online racing series? There have been some interesting headlines there, particularly including Lando Norris (positive), and Kyle Larson (not so positive...)

The readership demographic for the magazine is in an older age bracket compared to the website, so it wouldn't sustain the magazine through the current period. The main thing is news-stand sales - people aren't going to shops, so they're not buying magazines in shops. Advertisers are also, understandably, contributing less given other businesses are struggling.

That's reasonable. You cannot solve the problem of people not going to shops and not buying the magazine. But in terms of demographics, there's a question. Over the 70 years that the magazine has been going, the magazine would have needed to get new readers on board. Might this not have been an opportunity to have gained a new generation of readers?

I am writing this as a fan of the magazine and hope it has a good future.