Boating magazines
 

Chuck Gould wrote:
snip..

I can tell you for a fact that at least years ago,
when I was in the auto business, being named "Car of the Year" was
available to any Motor Trend advertiser willing to pay the big enough
bucks. Anybody else remember the Krysler K Kar, "Car of the Year"
award? :-)


I got sucked into buying the 1985 model. That thing would blow head
gaskets every 25000-30000 km.

Boating magazines
 

On 27 Jun 2006 15:34:29 -0700, "Chuck Gould"
wrote:


Reginald P. Smithers III wrote:
.

Do you find all of the product reviews in Passagemaker to be completely
unbiased without any concern towards the advertising dollars paid by the
mfg'er?

--
Reggie


Several years ago now, in Passagemaker, there was a major advertiser
selling toilet paper oil filters. Perhaps it was just a coincidence,
but month after month there seemed to be feature articles about the
"miracles" of TP oil filtration. The TP filter guy stopped advertising,
and while it has been several months since I last thumbed through a
Passagemaker magazine I think it's been a lot longer since I've noticed
any TP filter articles there. Are TP oil filters "bad"? Probably
depends on who you ask.

Point: If you don't notice any correlation between advertising content
and feature articles in any "enthusiast" magazine (boating, autos,
model building, hunting, fishing, photography, computers, etc) it's
more likely a lack of careful examination than any saintly editorial
"purity" in play. I can tell you for a fact that at least years ago,
when I was in the auto business, being named "Car of the Year" was
available to any Motor Trend advertiser willing to pay the big enough
bucks. Anybody else remember the Krysler K Kar, "Car of the Year"
award? :-)

There is one enthusiast magazine without said correlation. That is
'Motorcycle Consumer News'. No advertising, just the good and the bad and
actual comparisons.
http://www.mcnews.com/mcn/editor_intro.asp

We need one of these for boats.

--
John H

******************************************
***** Have a Spectacular Day! *****
******************************************

Boating magazines
 

JohnH wrote:
On 27 Jun 2006 15:34:29 -0700, "Chuck Gould"
wrote:

Reginald P. Smithers III wrote:
.
Do you find all of the product reviews in Passagemaker to be completely
unbiased without any concern towards the advertising dollars paid by the
mfg'er?

--
Reggie

Several years ago now, in Passagemaker, there was a major advertiser
selling toilet paper oil filters. Perhaps it was just a coincidence,
but month after month there seemed to be feature articles about the
"miracles" of TP oil filtration. The TP filter guy stopped advertising,
and while it has been several months since I last thumbed through a
Passagemaker magazine I think it's been a lot longer since I've noticed
any TP filter articles there. Are TP oil filters "bad"? Probably
depends on who you ask.

Point: If you don't notice any correlation between advertising content
and feature articles in any "enthusiast" magazine (boating, autos,
model building, hunting, fishing, photography, computers, etc) it's
more likely a lack of careful examination than any saintly editorial
"purity" in play. I can tell you for a fact that at least years ago,
when I was in the auto business, being named "Car of the Year" was
available to any Motor Trend advertiser willing to pay the big enough
bucks. Anybody else remember the Krysler K Kar, "Car of the Year"
award? :-)

There is one enthusiast magazine without said correlation. That is
'Motorcycle Consumer News'. No advertising, just the good and the bad and
actual comparisons.
http://www.mcnews.com/mcn/editor_intro.asp

We need one of these for boats.

--
John H

******************************************
***** Have a Spectacular Day! *****
******************************************
JohnH,

There is one, It is called called Powerboat Reports. It does a decent
job of not only reviewing the product but doing follow up with boat
owners.

http://www.powerboat-reports.com/

The biggest problem I have seen is a limited number of reviews for each
product category.



--
Reggie

That's my story and I am sticking to it!

Boating magazines
 

Reginald P. Smithers III wrote:

JohnH,

There is one, It is called called Powerboat Reports. It does a decent
job of not only reviewing the product but doing follow up with boat
owners.

http://www.powerboat-reports.com/

The biggest problem I have seen is a limited number of reviews for each
product category.


I haven't paid much attention to Powerboat Reports in the last few
years. Is it still about an 8-16 page newsletter? When I last read it,
it seemed to be very New England oriented. Anything built in New
England was pretty good and got reviewed. Stuff from elsewhere was
generally ignored.

Powerboat Reports accepts no advertising (unless that has recently
changed). Any magazine relying strictly on subscription income is going
to have very limited staff and resources to work with. They probably
don't have the capacity to print a greater number of reviews.

It would be hard to develop a meaningful number of follow ups with
actual owners for a lot of boats. As you know, with some of the larger
boats a sales volume of a few dozen a year isn't too bad. Subtract the
90% sold to people who don't subscribe to a particular magazine, and
now you're down to 5 or 6 boats. Take out another 50% who won't bother
to return the survey, and you're reading a whole lot into 3, 4, or 5
responses about a boat.

The Consumer Reports model is different than anything a boating
magazine could even begin to attempt to do. When they review a car, for
instance, they go out and buy one (anonymously) off a retail dealer's
lot. They give it to a staffer to drive back and forth to work for
several months, etc etc etc etc. When they look for comments from the
public, they're trying to collect comments from a universe of perhaps
100,000 units sold. Big difference. You wouldn't see any articles about
boats if boating magazines were expected to write a check for $750,000
to buy a new 42-foot WhatKnot just to do a boat review..........

And that's one of the reasons you will see a limited number of reviews
in a publication like Powerboat Reports; There is no "relationship"
with an advertiser, and a lot of manufacturers simply don't make their
boats available for testing by anybody who just happens along to ask.

Boating magazines
 

On Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:32:01 -0400, "Reginald P. Smithers III"
wrote:

JohnH wrote:
On 27 Jun 2006 15:34:29 -0700, "Chuck Gould"
wrote:

Reginald P. Smithers III wrote:
.
Do you find all of the product reviews in Passagemaker to be completely
unbiased without any concern towards the advertising dollars paid by the
mfg'er?

--
Reggie

Several years ago now, in Passagemaker, there was a major advertiser
selling toilet paper oil filters. Perhaps it was just a coincidence,
but month after month there seemed to be feature articles about the
"miracles" of TP oil filtration. The TP filter guy stopped advertising,
and while it has been several months since I last thumbed through a
Passagemaker magazine I think it's been a lot longer since I've noticed
any TP filter articles there. Are TP oil filters "bad"? Probably
depends on who you ask.

Point: If you don't notice any correlation between advertising content
and feature articles in any "enthusiast" magazine (boating, autos,
model building, hunting, fishing, photography, computers, etc) it's
more likely a lack of careful examination than any saintly editorial
"purity" in play. I can tell you for a fact that at least years ago,
when I was in the auto business, being named "Car of the Year" was
available to any Motor Trend advertiser willing to pay the big enough
bucks. Anybody else remember the Krysler K Kar, "Car of the Year"
award? :-)

There is one enthusiast magazine without said correlation. That is
'Motorcycle Consumer News'. No advertising, just the good and the bad and
actual comparisons.
http://www.mcnews.com/mcn/editor_intro.asp

We need one of these for boats.

--
John H

******************************************
***** Have a Spectacular Day! *****
******************************************
JohnH,

There is one, It is called called Powerboat Reports. It does a decent
job of not only reviewing the product but doing follow up with boat
owners.

http://www.powerboat-reports.com/

The biggest problem I have seen is a limited number of reviews for each
product category.

Thanks! Do you subscribe? For $15 one gets 7 issues. Does it only produce 7
issues per year?
--
John H

******************************************
***** Have a Spectacular Day! *****
******************************************

Boating magazines
 

I agree that Powerboat Reports is an excellent rag. Worth the $$, at
least for a few years. I finally dropped my subscription because they
just kept going over the same basic stuff over and over. I know it
changes over time but not that much. The only one I still receive for
free is Power Cruising. Good for local knowledge stuff, but mostly more
like a hotel/resort guide.

Passagemaker has totally gone to ****, only reporting on whored up
things and picnic boats. They've totally lost their way for their old
market segment. Probably still good for smaller boats, but not for
passagemakers. They're misnamed. The older copies are still worth their
weight in gold though.

Reginald P. Smithers III wrote:


There is one, It is called called Powerboat Reports. It does a decent
job of not only reviewing the product but doing follow up with boat
owners.

http://www.powerboat-reports.com/

Boating magazines
 

Harry Krause wrote:


I doubt they'd publish an article about a boat that was a piece of crap.
I find your pieces interesting sometimes, Chuck, but superficial and
with too much gladhanding. I understand the pressures, though.

Did standards change in the last few hours?

What happened to "They review everything, good, bad or indifferent?"

Boating magazines
 

"Don White" wrote in message
...
Chuck Gould wrote:
snip..

I can tell you for a fact that at least years ago,
when I was in the auto business, being named "Car of the Year" was
available to any Motor Trend advertiser willing to pay the big enough
bucks. Anybody else remember the Krysler K Kar, "Car of the Year"
award? :-)


I got sucked into buying the 1985 model. That thing would blow head
gaskets every 25000-30000 km.

I had a '79 Dodge Omni. Actually it wasn't a bad little car. It was as
basic as a car could be, had a 4 speed manual transmission and the engine
developed 72 hp. At the time Chrysler was buying the engines for the Omni,
Horizon and K-cars from Volkswagen. There was a guy I worked with that had
just bought a '80 Audi 4000 and was always bragging about how fine a car it
was and how superior the engine was compared to junk American cars. One day
he was showing it off to a couple of people and had the hood open. I went
over to the little Omni, popped the hood and showed him that the engine was
almost identical to that of his Audi. (the Audi was fuel injected and the
Omni had a carb, but the Audi only developed about 4 more horsepower). He
didn't like that at all and ended up trading the Audi in on a Fiat Spider.

Eisboch

Boating magazines
 

Harry Krause wrote:


In much more depth, as opposed to your gloss-over. I dunno, Chuck. You
seem to be willing to promote about any brand you encounter, include
Bayliners, and flatbottom boats for offshore use.

OK. Here's your chance for total vindication, Harry.

Why not hit the Google and find any instance where I promoted a "flat
bottomed boat" for "offshore use". Offshore use. Not inland waters,
Harry, "offshore use". While you are of course posting through your
ever-spinning hat, I wouldn't recommend actually looking through that
same fedora it while you conduct your fruitless search. :-)

Boating magazines
 

Around 6/27/2006 7:00 PM, Eisboch wrote:

"Don White" wrote in message
...
Chuck Gould wrote:
snip..

I can tell you for a fact that at least years ago,
when I was in the auto business, being named "Car of the Year" was
available to any Motor Trend advertiser willing to pay the big enough
bucks. Anybody else remember the Krysler K Kar, "Car of the Year"
award? :-)

I got sucked into buying the 1985 model. That thing would blow head
gaskets every 25000-30000 km.

I had a '79 Dodge Omni.

Did it look anything like this?
http://users.rcn.com/jdfensty/images/omni3.jpg

:)



--
~/Garth - 1966 Glastron V-142 Skiflite: "Blue-Boat"
"There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing
as simply messing about in boats." -- Kenneth Grahame
~~ Ventis secundis, tene cursum ~~