Cavallino also on its way out ?

Magazines are going the way of DVD's and cash.

 

They stopped newsstand sales last year, I think, which would account for some of the sales loss. Now that the ownership and the event are international the magazine might get a boost in circulation.

 

somehow the articles of vintage cars read as puff pieces auction houses would write. but those ole girls have real stories to tell which i would like to hear.

 

this has been the case for decades. ever notice how thick some magazines get a month or two before Christmas?

 

Actually it's been the case since all forms of media have been around. That's why TV, radio, magazines, etc. are collectively called "media". Media, as in medium, meaning "in the middle". In the middle between the retail business and the consumer. The articles (and radio/TV shows) are only there to lure you into viewing the advertising.

 

Most people today do no longer want to read much text (that would be too strenuous), they wanna see videos and pix and they want to be entertained. It's all about fun.
Tragic indeed.

Marcel Massini

 

What are you suggesting? That text can't be entertaining? It can and it should be and that is surely part of what good writing is about. I buy books and magazines because I want to be informed and entertained and you will sell a lot more copies if you do the latter as well as the former.

JK Rowling's Harry Potter books have sold more than 500 million copies and a lot of those to children who are well used to videos and pictures but still picked up books they, presumably, thought would entertain them even though they are several hundred pages each of text.

 

Decadence.

I am proud of the long research articles I published in Cavallino decades ago, some of them two part 15 pagers. I don't think TTR Timo saw, even less read them.

There is also more and more a laziness, part of the general decadent process, like one chap I won't mention who had bought my main book...but two years later mentioned in passing that he had not read it because it was in his garage....how moronic because he has plenty of time...his whole mindset was that no new research was possible no new interviews, he was stuck in the book level of the seventies; short vague. He had no idea of the progress made in the quality of books in recent years in terms of research (oh and that photography thing too, to me books are about text, text and text, photos are decoration, archive and recent).

But yes allowed word count has been going down through the years, ever shorter. I have had countless spirited discussions with magazine editors in numerous countries about this...I am not happy with that, which is why I do very few articles nowadays on cherry picked cars.

For my books I have one rule: each topic gets its natural length of text; not one world less than the whole story but not one word of fluff. THAT is how it should be done.

I am an idealist yes but then my self invented motto is whip reality into obeying the dream.

 

I wonder about that. I very much suspect that Canossa Events acquired Cavallino in order to gain "instant" name recognition and credibility in the US market. Previously, they were largely unknown. Once they are well established, I fear their commitment to the magazine may not continue, given that events are the primary revenue generator.

 

It's all about Youtube, Netflix, social media and if you're lucky an audio book for millions and millions of people these days.

 

@trashidelek!: I have no idea in which part of the world you live, possibly in the U.S.?
Yes, in the U.S. Canossa was "previously largely unknown" but certainly not in Europe.
Canossa has been a well-known event organizer for quite some years in Europe.

Marcel Massini

 

Cavallino has added a new section covering modern cars. I hope this will keep or attract younger readers so the magazine will continue to be published.

 

Well my point was that if someone has the attention span necessary to read a 500 page book then surely they have the attention span necessary to read a magazine which might have a single article of, at most, perhaps 10 pages.

Notwithstanding that you say we are not discussing books, I must respond to your comment about declining interest in printed books. As I understand it, sales of printed books have been increasing in recent years - and I suspect might well have increased further over the last year or so with lockdowns and other shenanigans.

With regards to the Internet. I tend to find that you can find an answer to pretty much any question (although which of the many answers you might find is actually correct is another thing entirely). You can also find a little about almost anything. But you can rarely find anything in depth unless you are prepared to spend a lot of time scouring numerous different websites. I tend to find the Internet prompts me to find a decent book on whatever the subject might be in order to learn more. Apologies for the digression.

With magazines, I think there are a few things going on. Firstly, there seem to me to be many more magazine titles than there used to be, albeit that many have been and gone over the years. Therefore, even if the same number of magazines are being bought, that is spread over more titles. Secondly, the "news" magazines that report recent events are fighting against television, Internet etc. By way of example, you used to have to buy a magazine to find out who won even quite major races. Now you can likely watch it live on TV or Internet and even if you can't the result will be accessible more-or-less instantaneously. Thirdly, there are the magazines that lose site of their readership and take their content in the "wrong" direction or just run out of things to say and lose their readership as a result. When I think of the magazines I have bought in the past but don't (or rarely do) any longer, in some cases it is because my interests have changed over time but mostly it is because of a decline in the quality of the content.

As to Cavallino specifically, I'm not sure why their readership might have halved in five years, as you say. I guess that is best answered by those who have bought it in the past but don't any longer. I subscribe although I do find it quite an odd magazine in many ways with its long list of "contributing editors" some of whom are dead(!) and many of the rest who don't appear to have contributed in many years; multiple pages that are repeated every issue (with the same errors uncorrected); often uninspired photography and relatively small percentage of pages of actual editorial content.

 

Exactly the way I see it!

 

Exactly. Canossa have had a significant presence with events in Europe, Italy in particular, for years. It seems obvious they are looking to expand their outreach in the US market. Acquiring the Cavallino brand, which is well established in Ferrari circles within the USA, will almost certainly facilitate this. The question is, how committed will they be long-term to the magazine, as opposed to events, which are likely more profitable?

 

I fear that Cavallino might have some similarities to Automobile Quarterly. AQ started in 1962 and was the epitome of cool for many young men of that generation. The problem was, they never moved beyond that demographic and the magazine finally withered away in 2012. Cavallino started in 1978 and I suspect their readership still skews towards that demographic. In addition, much like AQ, it doesn't help that complete sets of back issues no longer sell for what they once did. The perceived financial incentive to keep subscribing, so as to "keep the full set", is not what it once was.

 

West Texas, IIRC

Short version the magazine was Mr. Barnes passion, sometimes misdirected but he had his beliefs.
Mrs. Barnes was always nice with event question or circulation.

I actually do stil see it on newstands, (all specialist publications lack the "push" of say, Octoane or Road&Track.)

It was always expensive (cost of quality paper and ink) but it has gotten thinner and thiner.

In the "long view" though the original early issues were "close to the bone" and took less that 20 minutes cover to cover.
Cavallino has done a great job taken in totality.

As I know I don't "have it all" I respond to people "tossing them out"...but sadly, I have seen more than one library "tossing them ALL out.. Sigh

 

Quite right, issue 180 was the last one I bought, and even long before that I had had enough of them.

 

I have to agree that a couple of years ago the standard of Cavallino magazine went down: I found the content less and less interesting. After reading a new issue I no longer had the feeling that I had learned something new, so I stopped buying the magazine.
Recently I decided to give the magazine a second chance and bought the latest issues. I have to say I am pleasantly surprised; imho the standard is up again: interesting articles on specific chassis and people which make me sit down and read the magazine cover to cover.