21st century fishing journalism

[charleville]

Would wonder why any one would want to spend all there spare time walking around with something jammed in their ear.
What ever happened to good quality think time, time to dream, time to be just brain dead so it dont go into over drive and burn you out. relaxation

No one agrees more with you than I do Blaze. #One of my greatest thrills is to sit in the back yard without ipod or anything else (well maybe a hose when we were allowed to do such things # ) just looking at the stars and contemplating - one of the reasons that I like going night fishing on my own and indeed one of the joys of going fishing on my own 99% of the time.

But I have to admit that I hate doing exercise as I find it so boring - likewise doing dishes (not that I do them very often but I sometimes like to win some brownie points # #and we threw out that noisy, unreliable, cockroach-breeding, albeit Prince Phillip Design Award winning, dishwasher many many years ago ) - so when I have an intelligent program in my ear, I am perfect happy to do the mundane things with no sign of impatience.

In a similar vein to your comment, I find TV to be worse in that you have your brain pounded by both vision and sound so there is no hope of true relaxation. > #Since I have been on my 13 months long service leave, I have hardly watched any TV but when I was at work, I would regularly come home buggered and just slump in front of it and not move all night.

[Fafnir]

In years gone by I worked for a daily newspaper, that also had a free weekly paper. Interesting point about circulation vs readership. Pretty fair bet if you 'buy' a paper you will read it. Hard to know what happens with all the free ones. But certainly at the paper I worked at, they operated out of the same building, but were in the main seperate entities, often with sales reps fighting over the same advertising dollar. But most importantly, run by different editors who each decided on their own content. I would imagine Quest would be the same.

[charleville]

I Pretty fair bet if you 'buy' a paper you will read it.

Nah - I don't buy that. That was the usual argument mounted by the major dailies when I was trying to test the numbers but it has flaws.

I subscribed to delivered papers for years and many times they went unread because I was just so busy (and anyway some of the midweek papers did not have much in them anyway) or because I was out of town which I was for a lot of time in my job - like every week. I recall often throwing out several unopened rolled-up papers every week or so. >

By comparison, everyone in my household reads the freebie because it is friendly folksy local news. I don't give much of a toss about what is happening on the Gaza strip or what Tony Blair said yesterday such as gets reported every week in the major dailies and neither does anyone else in my home but the rest of the family will want to look at the pictures of the local school kids or see what entertainment is coming to the local shopping centre.

So the circulation figures of the major dailies may mean that each paper is read by just one person and maybe some days, it might be a cursory flick through at best whereas each suburban paper may be read by maybe four people in some households soaking up each and every page.

[Fafnir]

Ah, takes me back to my days as a sales rep, when all of these arguements were used for and against (depending on which publication I was selling for at the time).

I subscribed to delivered papers for years

You have a point here. I was talking more about a paper that you physically went out and purchased on that day. Subscription stats were always dubious for the points you have stated.

Having done some research in this area myself, I was surprised at the time (we are talking more than a decade ago), at how many households did NOT read their free weekly paper. But I suspect that it varies from market to market.

[Fafnir]

But going back to another point ...

I will even go out of my way to buy a magazine that gives away free advertorial DVDs such as the sort of stuff that Paul Burt does. These often lack the polish of big budget productions

I doubt if any “punter” will pay for podcasts

Herein lies the problem. It’s hard to fund anything of ‘quality’ without $. I am friends with a number of people who produce fishing media and I know the challenge they find in getting advertising dollars.

Paying a small fee, enables the person producing it to create a quality publication, complete with interviews with identities that would not feature without being paid for their time.

I personally would pay a small subscription fee for a quality podcast. Still curious as to whether others would. Maybe Steve could start a polll???

[Gutsy]

Very interesting topic. And very popular considering the amount of replies in such a short time. Well Done Charlie.

I myself suscribe to several fishing mags and flick thru these to read the articles that attract my attention. In saying that I must admit that I am always keen to read Nugget's article in the free local rag.

I think with technology growing and companies trying to grasp more market share podcasts and the like are the future. I mean, just look we are all on the web debating this topic on a great, free forum (Thanks Steve). A forum site that I'm sure Steve can allaborate further, but has more and more people joining each day. The same can be said about other popular fishing websites.

I myself would download podcasts on fishing related topics, and infact think it would be great to listen to Dave's show throughout the day at my own leisure. Ensuring I don't miss a beat.

Looking forward to reading further replies.

Cheers.

Marcel.

[Fafnir]

So Marcel, would you consider paying a dollar or two per month if Dave or Steve had a podcast that was subscription based?

[Gutsy]

I would consider it, yes. Compared to the price of Monthly Fishing Mags I think a dollar or two is fair.

Would you consider it?

[Gutsy]

Sorry, just re-read you previous post and you would. Fafnir.

PS, What is your real name....?

Cheers,

Marcel.

[Fafnir]

Podcasts, decent ones anyway, can be time consuming. So I like the thought that if someone were to put in the time and effort to do a decent one, that they would be able to get paid for their time. I think that a couple of dollars a month would be fair and reasonable, particularly if a lot of people subscribed.

I have no problem with other people making money. I like to think that if Steve, or Dave or anyone else for that matter started a $2 a month podcast that they could get thousands of subscribers world wide and make millions out of it. The site already offers heaps of top class free advice. But I would have no problem with paying a small amount for something along those lines. I just like to see people getting paid for their efforts.

PS Trevor

[tincanpeter]

As an oldie I can remember when newspaper journalists were also writers and able to entertain. Now as admitted by professors of journalistism due to the large supply of news materials , they are now becoming receivers and publishers of articals written by outside sources. You only have to read some of the political stories to see the results. Newspaper journalists have become BORING.
You can always pick when an audit on newspaper sales is due, free or subsidised
newspapers or some other give away gimmick

[coxy]

In my day, in my day....

I TOTALLY agree but unfortunately I'm not "In my day" anymore.


In your day did you get on the internet to talk fishing to people you've never met??

When I went to school there were no such things as mobile phones. Now most of my mates are employed by mobile phones.

It's no reason to be scared or angry but just to know that things change whether we like it or not. I can't do anything about it & neither can any of us.