Internet giveth and taketh away

When Scuttlebutt launched in 1997, it rode an internet which has challenged print publications. Phil Ross shares his unique perspective from that side of the fence:

I was the final editor of Australia’s Cruising Helmsman magazine, which lasted from 1981 to 2021. As obvious by its title, we published only for the cruising fraternity and, as such, its editorial was written mostly by its readers as opposed to journalists or professional sailors. A rather unique business model.

Magazine publishing woes, in general, aside, our wonderful niche magazine sat alongside a full-blown racing title published by the same company. As the viability of both our titles dwindled, it made interesting comparisons.

Online became the enemy, as soon as the internet could publish racing results, it became pointless for our racing title to publish results a month later. It had to increasingly rely on professional articles discussing how to improve racing capability, which became harder and harder to source and fund.

Our magazine, however, never really wavered in its readership numbers despite the internet. The reason is fairly obvious, what our writers offered was unique and niche (and got paid less, sorry team).

What did waver and finally kill the magazine was the advertisers; they could expand their reach to millions on the internet plus also produce their own marketing materials online. Our comparably small reach, while unique, was doomed as advertisers reduced the marketing budget percentage we would receive.

I tip my hat to all those publications still producing.

What intrigues me though, is the cruising market is by far the bigger of the two: cruising vs. racing. Go to any boat show and what do you see? Cruising yachts, not multi-million foiling behemoths. What sells is production yachts for the everyperson, increasingly nowadays whether they can sail or not.

Sure, there are the YouTubers selling a rather dreamy, mostly unobtainable lifestyle, but the out and out majority of (big) boats on the water are cruising yachts owned by mum and dad, families, and retirees.

Their stories are ready to be told; their market share is ready to be sold to. International promotional events, such as SailGP and the America’s Cup, are marketing for the bigger dollar, reaching out to those that will most likely never sail. So, in reality, we should not bother promoting as much.

Let us concentrate on the Dreamers, Schemers, and Beamers out there: past, present, and future.

Editor’s note: Scuttlebutt now feels the same squeeze. The situation was not great before COVID, and the pandemic pushed us closer to the edge. The same internet that giveth life may taketh away.