It is an unwritten law of journalism that we don't disparage our fellow scribblers and their miserable or even mighty organ. Except of course, when we do. However like any closed society. we are all keenly concerned about how well or badly our peers are doing, if only to ensure that we can take advantage of someone else's success... or misfortune. This is particularly true in the wacky world of motorbicycle mags where youth and daring are increasingly vital currencies, burnout -or indeed crash'n'burnout -is a fact of life, and our fortunes inexorably follow those of the trade we reflect.
And as it won't come as any surprise to Inside Line readers that bike sales so far this year are pretty crap. it follows that magazine circulations as a whole are down, as are forward advertising bookings. Well when I say 'circulations' I'm making a reasonably educated guess, because only seven of the twenty-five odd bikist mags have the confidence to have their sales figures validated by the independent Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), and those figures don't appear until well after each half year's sales have been finalised. (In fact there are ways of massaging even the ABC figures... and I should know, I've done it).
And as one EMAP ad. executive pointed out, "Every year the importers are trying to spend less money on marketing in order to sell more bikes, which isn't made any easier for the magazines who are already having to compete with mail-shots, exhibitions, internet and other types of below-the-line advertising." Ever canny at hedge-betting, EMAP are of course involved in all of these added-value activities, but most of the smaller bike mag publishers are having to fill theirad. quotas by discounting and even offering free pages in return for test bikes and reader giveaways.
In this respect the magazines are lucky: a re-launch or abandoning older editorial concepts for whiz-bang new features is the work of a moment, or at least a few weeks, but for motorcycle manufacturers, their importers and dealers, it's a much longer haul to improve fortunes. I'm sure the stories about warehouses full of supersport bikes that importers blithely assumed would sell like hot-cakes come the spring are not entirely apocryphal. And hundreds of unsold Hayabusas or Blackbirds can't be turned overnight into DR-Z 400s or CG 125s just because trail and traditional motorbikes are selling far better than tarmac scorchers this year. In fact the MIA claims that supersport sales were completely flat for the first six months of the year, and I understand that month-on-month they've subsequently fallen.
Of course there are many reasons for this, but crap weather, stockmarkets going tits-up and a steady procession of national events pandering to the couch potatoes amongst us (the Jubilee, World Cup, Commonwealth Games etc) must certainly take a share of the blame. And I won't even mention insurance costs.
Thus in the same way that big, bad bike magazines somewhat grudgingly acknowledged the way the wind was blowing a couple of years ago by running scooter shoot-outs and buyers guides, we'll soon be seeing more roadtests of factory customs (overall sales up 14%), trail/enduro bikes (up a whopping 112%) and traditional, i.e. rather boring, machines (up 7%). Some of the cannier titles are already embracing super-motos as sales of these enduro-bikes-with- road-tyres inexorably rise, even though they've not yet factored in MIA sales figures. And hopefully for the publishers, the advertising campaigns for such machinery will follow. However another ad. manager I spoke to rather cynically suggested that the importers were happy to see the supersport status quo remaining intact because they needed the publicity to sell all those unsold bikes... and the advertising would be there too.
The best known of these is of course Ride, which currently sells well over 70,000 copies and is the one ABC-registered title to report circulation gains in the latest audit period. I could rest my case right there, but it must be said that Ride's test content is split about 50/50 between new and used bikes and their avowed editorial message is about 'getting the most out of the bike you own'. Needless to say, this means lots of editorial on clothing, aftermarket kit and riding experience, without which the magazine would suffer because the bike importers apparently aren't keen to advertise in mags that concern themselves primarily with used kit.
As their names suggest, Used Bike Guide and Used Motorcycle Guide are less catholic and far more, er, homely in their coverage: they only feature used bikes, often very used bikes. (I should perhaps declare an interest here, I used to publish UBG. But now I don't). And though their circulations reflect this, they are both growing where other mags' aren't. UBG is up from around 8,000 two years ago (after an ill-fated re-launch) to a claimed 15,000, whilst UMG has apparently risen from around 9,000 to 12,000 and its energetic new owners are planning to fancy it up with glossy paper and colour pics.
Unsurprisingly these wee specialist mags don't attract major league advertisers and probably never will, but along with the mighty Ride and, indeed, the classified-based Bike Trader, they're a salutary barometer of where the growth is. Judicious analysis of what used bikes are selling, and to whom, might seem like a waste of time for anyone except the dealers who specialise in them (and who pretty much know the score anyway), but maybe manufacturers and importers would be well advised to do exactly this if they don't want to have more warehouses full of unsold, and unsaleable, bikes this time next year. After all, today's used bike rider is likely to be tomorrow's new bike buyer.