[Closed] Dirt Rag 😢 Who's next?

I’m surprised any mags are still around with the amounts of online content.

I spend a fair bit on paper mags. Sidetracked mag, Cranked mag and single-track now and again. I li e the feel of paper and the look of the photos in print.

To be fair, magazines are bloody expensive for what is essentially a throw away product, especially as mentioned above the proliferation of on-line content available

I subscribed to DR for a year at one point, it was even more waffly and up its own arse than STW 🙂

Not good for the workers, but I can't say I'm going to miss it.

I quite liked DR, subscribed on & off for a few years. Shame it's gone.

Is there an article regarding the Singletrack mag/Chipps and the future?

it was even more waffly and up its own arse than STW 🙂

Why I stopped buying ST years ago when it became a cyclocross / touring magazine. Nothing I couldn't read that suited my tastes better for nowt on the net.

Only buy car magazines now which weirdly I think seem to be doing well with the death of the forum and rise of facebook as build threads don't seem to translate very well to facebook and so reading about stuff people have built in magazine format is great.

Mags are doing just fine, Cranked has it's niche covered, the difference is good writing and photos without feeling the need to fling one out every month. Kinda how I felt about Dirt when it went from bimonthly to monthly.

99% of the world is wondering about with a smart phone under their noses. Mags will only continue to work for a tiny select few who can be persuaded to subscribe. To do that you still need an online prescence to market and sell the subscription.

I stopped buying mags regularly when they went over 6 quid an issue. I still like them but have started using Readly to access what I want to see.

I still like a physical magazine though over a digital issue, but I guess I'm old fashioned.

Dirt Rag going down is sad though, I really liked it and was thinking of taking out a sub just the other week

I always felt like Dirt Rag also suffered from sounding far too similar to Dirt Mag - I kept forgetting it was even a thing

Why I stopped buying ST years ago when it became a cyclocross / touring magazine.

I stopped reading when a group test had every item tested by a different person, so there was absolutely no useful comparison

Agree with squirrelking, it depends on the mag.

MBR, MBUK etc are competing directly with the internet news sites and will always struggle to compete with the likes of PinkBike, Vital etc in that they're out of date as soon as they go to print. Same as daily newspapers vs online news sites. There will always be people who prefer to have something physical in their hand but that is getting a smaller market all the time. At the other end you have the likes of Cranked who don't touch review, news etc at all but focus on stories that don't date quickly, superb photography and giving something tactile to the consumer that's on high quality paper and more akin to a decent novel. In the middle you have the STW's who are trying to do a bit of everything.

To survive you need to know your market and follow it through. The only publications that are sustainable or growing are the high quality ones that offer something different to what you get online. Print isn't dead, it's just changing.

I stopped buying mags regularly when they went over 6 quid an issue. I still like them but have started using Readly to access what I want to see.

Kinda agree, for ~£6 you could get a whole book of someones round the world adventure, or pro career. When put up against the shortform of another bike trip to Scotland/wales/exmoor/dartmoor and a press junket to Switzerland you kinda have to question the VFM, especially with the plethora of blogs/vlogs of peoples trips, some of which are really good.

I subscribe to ST, but TBH I probably read about half of it? I mostly just use the subscription to flick through the bits I like in the digital back issues.

Some of the columns are really good.

Some of the travel guides and rides are really good.

The product/bike tests though are mostly from the superbike end of things, and often not all that grouped,

Coming soon:

"we picked 4 bikes each sold by a bloke called Dave and pitted them against each other, find out which is best The On-One Dirty Disco from Dave at Planet-X, some vapourware from Dave Hinde, a retro 90's Dave Yates Donkis nob, and a battered downhill bike our mate Dave from down the pub was fencing".

Next month:

"which is best, Tom Ritcheys Road Logic, or Tom Reynolds signature jump frame".

I thought was going to be in the same vein as the penis beaker thread on mumsnet. I am disappointed.

Bout the same as a pint of beer then (down South!).

Beer provides enjoyment though.

Mags will be like Vinyl, they will make a comeback but hopefully not at the expense of the environment (unlike Vinyl). Always look forward to smelling my STW pages 😁

I stopped buying hard-copy magazines a while ago after I realized I was buying them but never having the time to actually sit down & read them.

I still download the electronic version of STW though as it's nice and easy to browse whilst sat on the bog or on holiday, but other than that I may pick up a physical copy of something maybe once a year at the most.

Dirt-Rag always sounded like a cheaper version of Razzle to me though.

To be fair, magazines are bloody expensive for what is essentially a throw away product...

Are they though? Most cost little more than a cup of coffee or a pint of beer.

I love magazines, but have to admit, the few times I buy them I rarely even read them these days. There really is just too much content elsewhere. Which makes me a bit sad.

Kinda agree, for ~£6 you could get a whole book of someones round the world adventure, or pro career. When put up against the shortform of another bike trip to Scotland/wales/exmoor/dartmoor and a press junket to Switzerland you kinda have to question the VFM, especially with the plethora of blogs/vlogs of peoples trips, some of which are really good.

This comment on something I posted here 9 years ago has stuck with me and is still relevant

There seems to be more interesting stuff being put on here than gets into the mag (29er review as well)

There's so much good user-generated content around that I can pick and choose what seems relevant to me and fill any free time I have with it. For instance, I look forward to summitopplers regular photo/video posts because we're very much into the same thing.

As for Dirt Rag, I'd honestly never even heard of it (or just assumed it was Dirt Mag).

Are they though? Most cost little more than a cup of coffee or a pint of beer.

That’s some expensive coffee and beer you drink.

Magazines are struggling look how may have vanished in recent years, online media is very much the reason why.

I'm not interested in reading from screens unless I'm at work.

I look forward to a good printed magazine arriving, it takes me a couple of weeks to get through it but then I'm waiting for the next.

I subscribe to two mountain bike magazines, but I will say I had never heard of Dirt Rag.

I subscribed to cycling weekly for years but stopped at the end of last year simply because I didn't have time to read it and a new one would turn up before having finished the previous. I still prefer reading a real magazine over online content.

I stopped buying hard-copy magazines a while ago after I realized I was buying them but never having the time to actually sit down & read them.
I still download the electronic version of STW though as it’s nice and easy to browse whilst sat on the bog or on holiday, but other than that I may pick up a physical copy of something maybe once a year at the most.

Your post reads that you can't find time to read a hard copy but have time to read it off your phone? (I don't care either way, but I often hear people saying that they don't have time to read books, despite spending half their lives staring at a phone..)

Magazines are struggling look how may have vanished in recent years, online media is very much the reason why.

You mean the likes of the Factory Media titles that were still profitable but the new owners just didn't care for them? Or the fact Cranked are making a success of it?

Bad magazines that haven't moved with the times are struggling, the innovators are still here.

I'm starting to wonder why I don't cancel my MBUK subscription, I find it more and more uninteresting with every issue, lazy journalism, nothing in depth, repetitive tests practically the same as the previous years issue, and the race coverage is pathetic, only dedicating a few paragraphs to the world championships while some 'wish you where here' article gets 8 pages of who cares. How hard can it be to get a good interview with a rider every issue or somebody of interest from the industry and take an in depth look at their set up, maybe showing us the reason why frames, suspension and components can cost so much.

You mean the likes of the Factory Media titles that were still profitable but the new owners just didn’t care for them? Or the fact Cranked are making a success of it?

Bad magazines that haven’t moved with the times are struggling, the innovators are still here.

No, I mean they’re struggling.

I had a look at magazine ABC figures a while back.

https://www.perpetualdisappointment.co.uk/how-long-have-mountain-bike-magazines-got-left/

Realistically, and sadly, I really don't think there is long left for the more mainstream magazines.

The limited run coffee table books are the future of MTB in print imo.

I stopped buying MTB mags a while ago and car magazines too. A few months ago though I discovered The Roadrat and it’s sublime. As highbrow as a car magazine can be but in the best possible way.

Don’t buy any mags at all now, particularly as most publishing houses just duplicate content amongst their stable and just regurgitate the PR guff/fluff; T3 & Stuff, I’m looking at you in particular! The MTB mags are just as bad though, especially MBR & MBUK.

Got a Readly subscription a couple of years back and it’s great.

Bad magazines that haven’t moved with the times are struggling, the innovators are still here.

Very much this.

Online and print have different strengths. A surprising number of big publishing houses with multi million pound budgets still don't appear to understand this simple fact.

Print is changing. It has been since the early 2000s. You can do things with print that you can't do online (and vice versa). The market is (a lot) smaller, but it isn't going to disappear.

Dont forget a lot of businesses that are online are strugling to figure out how to make money out of it.

A few months ago though I discovered The Roadrat and it’s sublime. As highbrow as a car magazine can be but in the best possible way.

£16.50 an issue, including P&P! It had better be good.

Bad magazines that haven’t moved with the times are struggling, the innovators are still here.

I'd be wary of conflating "good" and "innovative" here. Singletrack mag is struggling, is it bad? Not really, it's just suffering from the shift of advertising money to digital at the same time as its audience ages and loses interest a bit.

I rarely read the printed mag (digital subscriber), having the impression that it's a bit self-indulgent and repetitive. Just checked out the latest issue and it's actually pretty decent.

I worked in the fun magazine world in the golden period of 80s/90s. It was great and a real money maker, everyone in the chain from advertiser to reader seemed to like it and we travel,Ed the world partying and having fun. When I had my meltdown in the early 2000s it was just before the restructuring. I’m sure a mag can survive now. It will need so much more work than before and a more niche audience.

I’d be wary of conflating “good” and “innovative” here. Singletrack mag is struggling, is it bad? Not really, it’s just suffering from the shift of advertising money to digital at the same time as its audience ages and loses interest a bit.

TBH it sounds like they need to innovate and reinvent themselves then. Like Seb said, digital can do things print can't but equally print has its strengths as well.

I take your point though, good/bad was probably the wrong choice of words if you are looking from a quality perspective, I was looking at it in business terms.

The only print copy subject matter relevant magazine that I'd bother to read is Singletrack, there's really very little content in the mainstream titles that interests me. I flicked through MBR at a WH Smith's a couple of months ago, it was anemic at best.

TBH it sounds like they need to innovate and reinvent themselves then. Like Seb said, digital can do things print can’t but equally print has its strengths as well.

I take your point though, good/bad was probably the wrong choice of words if you are looking from a quality perspective, I was looking at it in business terms.

Understood, and I don't disagree on the need for re-invention, but magazines can be a bit "of their time" and consequently have a limited lifespan.

Remember when Zoo and Nuts magazines were on every newsstand? Now teenagers can look at tits on their mobile phones instead.

Same applies to MTB mags, so the space left to re-invent in is getting smaller and smaller as younger (and older) riders get what they want from websites, YouTube & Instagram instead of print titles.

I love following the DH and would still subscribe to Dirt if it hadn't been cruelly closed down, but I'm not interested in coffee table books about it - and something like Cranked would have too few features of interest to me for it to be worth buying.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I'm "over" magazines a bit - and I wonder if the same applies to a lot of other seasoned MTBers?

If Dirt were to be reincarnated then I'd definitely subscribe. I've stopped pretty much all mag subs with the exception of Singletrack, I always intend to read them but never seem to get round to it.

There is no such thing as an online magazine, or a magazine that you read on a phone. Not til we get foldable A3 sized tablets, anyway. What we've got just now, is sort of half-assed reader apps trying to do magazine-format content but in a format that doesn't suit it. It's no substitute, it's not like a kindle where you're basically looking at a thing the same size as a book page, with writing like on a book page. So I'll keep reading 'em as long as they exist and I think a lot of other people too

(I know that some of the magazines I do read, car stuff mostly, is actually going up in circulation... But for every story like that, there's something like Streetfighters mag which did a heroic paper relaunch, that sank like a stone. Or a Dirt- a magazine that actually made money, cancelled because the publisher had too many magazines that didn't.)

Chakaping - had a look at Shredder? It's like a smaller but DH oriented version of Cranked. Similar angle but obviously different subject matter.