Emphasis added…I’m guessing bradley has a little more insight on the situation than all of us.
And his overall take was spot-on…a lot of this is on the consumers / readers, too. Too many failed to subscribe…yes, the media has done itself a disservice in training its readers that the content can be free, but ultimately, no one should expect to receive the fruits of someone else’s labor without some compensation.
I’ve opined on this plenty of times in the past when people complained about paywalls and metered articles / month.
Paid for CT a month ago; cancelled it yesterday. (I should have paid for it a year ago). I don’t see how they’re viable without CF there as the center of gravity over there.
I dont get how CT is better with a large cast of lower paid characters than just a few key players.
I do pay for written (and audible) content to support good writing/ listening (the podcast was one of the factors as to why I subbed to CT rather than CN, maybe the main reason).
However, I wasn’t that impressed that it seemed that the owners were basically splitting content between VN and CT, justifying two subs.
There is definitely a big element of the written media making a rod for it’s own back in effectively creating the expectation of not paying for content. But in fairness, when it started in the 2000’s print was probably still the revenue generator.
Just to be clear, I am not defending Outside in any way, shape, or form. They can suck it as far as I am concerned and I cancelled my sub to CT.
But that is a different issue than recognizing that the larger readership mostly did not subscribe to any of the websites and often complained about paywalls and metered articles when encountered.
These two issues are not mutually exclusive…they can (and do, IMO) co-exist.
I agree about the principle of subscriptions and paywalls. I have paid for CT happily for years. His points about money are correct, but thats as far as I will go.
But I still disagree with his underlying premise. Outside Inc IS to blame here. This was a private equity play gone awry and nothing more. Would CT have stayed a smaller player with less exposure if Outside Inc had not have purchased it from Bikeexchange? probably. But crying poor when your plans for world domination of a market go awry is kind of hard to take. I’m talking about Outside here and not John.
I think we are simpatico on this one. I’m not being argumentative, I think people need to stop expecting our niche sport (AND IT IS NICHE for anyone who doesn’t understand what kind of money is in major sports media) content to be free.
That’s why I think people who complain about TR prices are so far off base. There is SO much great content the company generates outside of the great product offerings.
I ran into a big problem early on because I was already a paid CT subscriber when they got bought by O+. O+ was advertising that you got a subscription to the rag of your choice, plus web access to articles from all of their properties…but it did not specifically say ALL articles. I was concerned that I would subscribe to O+ and find I was still outside a CT paywall, not a member of VeloClub, etc. On the other hand, I didn’t want to subscribe ONLY to CT if I could pay less for O+ and get access to all articles from a few dozen magazines and lose none of my current access or perks.
It came time to renew and I wrote Caley and Wade and asked them what I got when I subscribed to O+ and what the difference was. They didn’t know. That was the moment I knew things were headed south.
Oh man. I hadn’t though of it, but my IMBA membership got me O+ this year. I just ignore the email, but I definitely don’t want it to auto renew in case they somehow got my info. Where did you go to cancel?
Highly unlikely…he is a minority investor, at best. IIRC, he is just an investor in PE group that is invested in Outside.
ETA - further context…LA is the managing partner at NEXT Ventures, a minority investor in Outside.
The tweet that started this….
As an EIC, Flax should be ashamed of this. He is just rumor-momgering, something antithetical to journalists. If he is “ hearing” these allegations, he needs to investigate and corroborate them, not spread them.
Stop blaming the users for the free content. Publishers shouldn’t offer it if they can’t make it on the ad model.
I also hate the 'hat in hand" public radio model of asking for support. Just make a good product for a fair price and the market will decide.
By all accounts from Fretz’s comments recently, CT was financially healthy.
I’m saddened by this. I followed Fretz to CT when he left Velonews. Before that, I had never heard of CT.
Lately though, since the first round of cuts, CT has kind of sucked. The main podcast didn’t have the same energy without the old cast of characters. Their best podcast has been Nerd Alert, especially the Ask a Mechanic segment when done with Zach at Boulder Grupetto.
I’ll still listen to James Huang if he comes up with something good but I’ll probably spend very little time on the CT web site going forward.
My first thought when hearing this, was that it felt like rage bait. The person we hate the most is involved tangentially with the company, he obviously was having people fired who reported on him back in the day. Just seems too good to be true. I just want this corroborated by more than just Flax, whom I’ll leave my opinions unsaid for.
So…I’m not wild about Road Bike Action magazine, but still subscribe. I like(d) Peloton. Loved the British productions like Pro Cycling but waay too expensive for print version in the US, and not wild about reading online. What should I subscribe to??
