Cycle World, has been sold by Hearst to the Bonnier Corporation. Cycle World was owned during 25 years by Hachette Filipacchi, then sold last year to Hearst Magazines and now resold to the Bonnier Group, a Swedish company with publishing presence in the USA, owning about 50 titles, the most well known being Popular Science, Outdoor Life and Parenting.
I am told by a reliable source that Cycle World was sold again because a too small magazine in the Hearst’s huge consumer-magazine operation. Contrary to many months of rumors predicting that Cycle World will go out of business, Cycle World is still in position to continue publishing articles covering everything from technical reviews to professional profiles and competition coverage.
I have subscribed for years. I hope it sticks around and stays high quality.
The last 2 magazines I subscribed to- “Garage” and “Barnetts” went under, the internet is the death blow to a lot of paper-don’t even get my hometown newspaper read it on line. There is a high quality paper mill in town that just went bankrupt, have’t gone to the e books yet I still enjoy reading books but it is only a matter of time
It”s getting slim pickins’ on the news rack at Ralph’s. Yesterday I saw to M/C mags. “Motorcyclist” & “Cycle Source”…. the rest were Hot Rods and Bicycles.
I’ve been reading CW since the 60’s (that’s 1960’s to you wiseasses)
and it’s always been a great read. Saw Cycle, Cycle Guide and others come and go but hat’s of to CW for hanging in there.
Hey Cyril. If you would report on motorcycle racing you could also kill this magazine! Huh.
While I think printed magazines are going to struggle and eventually disappear, there is still room for a magazine style publication that has good in-depth articles, good photography, and good editing and layout. I think we will be reading them on iPad’s and such in the future, but people still appreciate quality stories. I think news is going more to the Internet and in-depth edited stories are going to be on platforms like iPad. The financial end of publishing is certainly going to change things.
H. Schneider.
What do you mean, if Cyril . reported on racing it would kill CW. Huh
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Sounds as though you never indulged in a copy of CW.
Sat – Oct – 01 just received my copy of CW in the mail box. Now a happy camper.
I can understand your enthusiasm for Cyril’s Blog as all of us share it with you. It’s part of my every day enthusiasm for the news pertaining to motorcycles and what is happening on a daily basis.
I would miss Cyril’s blog if it were to disappear just the same for Cycle World and the depth of motorcycling coverage.
James. I already read Cyril on my iPad and occasionally on my iPhone. Paper magazines are going to disappear. Not magazines. But you don’t read an online magazine like you read a paper magazine. Different layout, different content, different tone, different way to turn pages, etc.
There is just something tactile and engaging about a nice magazine like Cycle World. I’d be seriously bummed Cycle World went out of business. As long as it’s available I will subscribe. I read a lot of the online Blogs and they’re great but getting a Cycle World in the mail is a treat. I guess it’s like the difference between analog and digital speedometers. Digital may be more high tech and efficient but the analog just seems more ergonomic.
A print magazine is more “ergonomic”? You will have to explain this one to all readers…
There will always be a market for the paper magazines, as much as all the techno-geeks would like to believe otherwise.
Internet sources are great, but they come and go, it would be difficult to maintain a multi-year archive keeping pictures of everything available. That’s the cool thing about paper magazines, you cn go back to an old issue, even if the power is out. Looking for that one thing you remembered in an old mag makes you skim through a couple and remember some of the other great things in them.
Anyone can have a blog, and that’s obvious from the billions of them out here. Some are good, some suck. There’s no money in internet magazines, everyone expects everything for nothing on the internet. Some, like Cyril and Keith appear to be doing ok online, but they are the exception.
Today’s tech is going to look archaic in just a couple of years, a big percentage of our readers don’t even use computers (according to the snail mail) so here’s to hoping that the announcement of the death of the paper magazine is a little premature.
Oh yeah, CW was always the best of their genre,
Englishman.
“Internet sources are great, but they come and go.” And print magazines? They don’t come and go? They no more come and most go.
“It would be difficult to maintain a multi-year archive keeping pictures of everything available.” False. You can access, save, read offline any internet content after downloading it. How do major print magazines, newspapers kept their archives? On a computer, not in piles of everything published. It’s easier to find an article of years past by a computer search than opening years of magazines.
“There’s no money in internet magazines” I am not a publisher, so I have no numbers. But you are saying that all the online publishing world is wrong? I don’t think so. Like with all new technologies, many people go into it with a minority succeeding. Did all newspapers and print magazines that disappeared folded because of not enough money to continue publishing?
“A big percentage of our readers don’t even use computers (according to the snail mail) so here’s to hoping that the announcement of the death of the paper magazine is a little premature.” If half of your readers don’t have a computer (difficult to believe) they will have one very soon. So your mag future is bleak.
I unsubscribed to Cycle World because they are openly telling their readers that they are shifting all content to the internet where I continue to read it. So Cycle World disagrees with you.
Englishman. Cycle World was sold again because not making money. The new buyer will focus efforts on online publishing. It contradicts your analysis. It’s their last chance to survive.
I will take the good old paper magazines anyday.
“Ergonomics derives from two Greek words: ergon, meaning work, and nomoi, meaning natural laws. Combined they create a word that means the science of work and a person’s relationship to that work.
In application ergonomics is a discipline focused on making products and tasks comfortable and efficient for the user.
Ergonomics is sometimes defined as the science of fitting the work to the user instead of forcing the user to fit the work. However this is more a primary ergonomic principle rather than a definition.”
An analog speedometer works better in relaying information without taking our mind off the task of riding as apposed to a digital speedometer with causes the human brain to switch to a less visual spacial task.
Likewise, paper magazines give the reader a tactile / visual spacial platform to convey information. Something computer screens are less capable of doing.
Granted, I am kind of an old school guy and the new generation of motorcyclist will grow up so engrossed in reading off computer screens that it may not be such an issue. Still, most new bikes still employ some kind of analog element on their speedometers.
English Man. 1/2 of your readers don’t have access to a computer? 1/2 are prisoners? Big market for your advertisers.
Cw, what a rag it turned into. Self proclaimed experts on every subject in the motorcycle industry. I too began reading CW in the 60’s and watched it’s decline.Just last week they sent me a subscription for $7 bucks. No thanks. ..Z
Reclining with current issue CW & 2 fingers of George Dickel… beats going blind staring at my iMac for hours !