View Single Post
  #13  
Old 13th January 2018, 01:19
FalkeEins's Avatar
FalkeEins FalkeEins is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Hauts-de-France
Posts: 838
FalkeEins will become famous soon enough
Re: Declining quality of British aviation magazines

'Aeroplane' and 'Flypast' are owned by Key Publishing. They also own just about every other UK aviation magazine - 'Aviation News', 'Combat Aircraft', 'Air Forces Monthly', 'Jets' (now incorporated into AN) and 'Air International'. All of these mags have now subsequently lost their 'unique' identity. Even 'Britain at War' (another Key title) looks like Flypast.

Stephen Bridgewater, editor of 'Jets' in 2015 said to me back then ;

" ..Key purchased us last September. Personally I think it's a great thing. It was like going home for me as I worked on their 'Today's Pilot from 2000 to 2007. They're the market leaders and have the money to invest in the magazines, that other publishers do not. There's no cross over between Jets and other titles. I've only seen good progress so far..."

That was obviously before Key wound his title up in 2016! The idea that far from condemning certain titles to oblivion, Key was actually rescuing them I thought was a nonsense at the time. Evidently though Kelsey ('Aeroplane Monthly', 'Jets') and Ian Allan ('Classic Aircraft') sold out to Key since those particular titles were not making any money. Editorial content is now shared out of the same pool of contributors and any one article could easily appear in any other of the magazines. Chris Goss must have written for all of them by now. I really don't understand what Key's approach is here. They've wiped out the competition but now they have a roster of magazines that no-one will buy (in comparative terms..) - the 'average' enthusiast is only going to buy two or three magazines per month at most. So they play it safe - the UK magazine scene desperately lacks the more interesting and 'off-the-wall' subjects that you would see in, say, the French magazines; 'Avions', 'Le Fana de l'Aviation', 'Airfan', even 'Aerojournal' - four quality, independent (from each other), bi-monthly (for the most part) mags
__________________
FalkeEins- The Luftwaffe blog
Reply With Quote