Is there a market for an Irish fitness magazine?

cmyk · 30-06-2011 02:25PM #1

...or is the market too small? Anyone want to float any ideas around?

Satanta · 30-06-2011 02:28PM

There is certainty a market for a good fitness magazine. I wouldnt bother my arse reading the stuff that is on the shelves at the moment.

Edwardius · 30-06-2011 02:37PM

A monthly PDF/newsletter thing might be a good idea at first. Rachel Crass was running strength+ over in that there america in PDF format (with a subscription), but now I think they're doing a printed run. Costs an absolute ****load apparently.

I think the whole "guest article" thing you've been running on your website was a good idea and would probably feed into this sort of thing. What sort of content did you plan on, interviews etc? You could have a directory of coaches/athletics/sports clubs and get them to talk about what they're all at. Dunno if anyone else is doing it, I'd say go for it!

El Guapo! · 30-06-2011 02:42PM

If it was a good quality magazine with good quality info then I know I'd buy it.
But I'd say its a tough market. You'd have to drag people away from the likes of "Men's Health Magazine" and other tripe. And even though your magazine will probably be 1000 times better, your still competing with a monster brand which is always hard. Plus they have huge advertising budgets which would be too hard to compete with.
IMO the best bet at the minute for a magazine is to couple together 2 types of Irish magazines that the market is lacking.....a quality mma magazine, and a health and fitness magazine. If you can successfully put these two together into 1 well organised mag and advertise it well in the early stages, you'd be onto a winner.

G86 · 30-06-2011 02:47PM

cmyk wrote: »

...or is the market too small? Anyone want to float any ideas around?

It depends. The first thing I thought was 'yep, definitely'. But then I thought about the number of times I say 'no' to the cashier in Holland an Barrett who tries to sell me 'Healthy' magazine (I think that's what it's called!) everytime I'm in there.

You would definitely need to have info in it that's not readily available to people online already. Things like guest writers/interviews would be brilliant, and more articles that 'involve' the reader such as a gym review piece where you get a few readers to review a few local gyms by actually training there. If you did some kind of contra deal with the highest rated gym you could look at running a reader comp which offered free membership for a month, and then maybe doing a piece which follows that readers training. People like to read about real life stories, so something like that would be great, and if it ran over a few weeks it would entice them to keep buying the mag. You could also have a Q&A type column with a well-known sports personality/trainer in which readers could email in queries about their training/diet.

So I do think there's a market for it, but you need to have a balance of editorial content - where you appeal to the general everyday person who's just starting out, as well as the fitness fanatic/competitor.

Michael 09 · 30-06-2011 03:00PM

cmyk wrote: »

...or is the market too small? Anyone want to float any ideas around?

If you go ahead with it can I be on the cover? I'm still upset about not getting mens health

Brian? · 30-06-2011 03:10PM

Unfortunately I don't think so. Your average Joe/Jane prefers to get their diet and exercise advice from magazines like Heat.

I'd love to see a decent mag on fitness produced in Ireland, but if you look at whats successful it's far from decent.

LFC5Times · 30-06-2011 03:15PM

I don't think it would be a runner tbh - I personally wouldn't be interested in spending money on a magazine and I also thing the overall market would be small not to mention a lot of work to get the magazine out there.

I'm sure you could get some gyms to sell it but they would want a cut and I'm sure there would be other gyms who wouldn't want to sell it - just because of the hassle of handing over and holding cash.

cmyk · 30-06-2011 03:27PM

Cheers for the feedback, I'm really just putting the feelers out at the moment. I'm not sure whether it's a runner at all. It would live and die on the advertising generated rather than sales at the stands. Plenty of ideas, as well as loads more coming down the line for the site...but the market size is the real issue.

Frogdog · 30-06-2011 04:22PM

Generally speaking, aren't magazines a bit passé when it comes to sourcing information? Particularly with regards to an industry that's constantly evolving and changing (fitness, nutrition etc).

How about an Irish health, nutrition & fitness website or blog? That's where I get all my information from these days. It would have less costs, yet still have room for raising advertising revenue etc.

G86 · 30-06-2011 04:34PM

Frogdog wrote: »

How about an Irish health, nutrition & fitness website or blog? That's where I get all my information from these days. It would have less costs, yet still have room for raising advertising revenue etc.

He already has one - see blog sig.

Frogdog · 30-06-2011 04:42PM

G86 wrote: »

He already has one - see blog sig.

I've sigs turned off, sorry!

cmyk · 30-06-2011 04:52PM

Dead Ed wrote: »

A monthly PDF/newsletter thing might be a good idea at first. Rachel Crass was running strength+ over in that there america in PDF format (with a subscription), but now I think they're doing a printed run. Costs an absolute ****load apparently.

Good resource, thanks for that. It's a route I'll probably look at. Personally I find it difficult reading online these days, too many competing distractions, bad on the eyes etc. It is costly, but if it was well supported and consequently supported irish businesses it may work.

SanoVitae · 30-06-2011 05:35PM

You do realise that Hanley would want to be on the cover every single issue, yeah?

SanoVitae · 30-06-2011 05:41PM

Personally, I think you're best sticking with your current website and delivering a free E-zine to those who subscribe to it.

Any money would be made from advertising, not from selling the E-zine itself.

You build value to the advertisers by building a huge active list of their exact target market, i.e. people who exercise regularly and buy health foods/supplements/exercise clothing etc.

To build the list, you supply valuable free content to your subscribers. You're already doing this so are on the right track.

cmyk · 30-06-2011 05:47PM

SanoVitae wrote: »

You do realise that Hanley would want to be on the cover every single issue, yeah?

He's that guy from Westwood with the black mullet isn't he?

jive · 30-06-2011 05:53PM

In short, no. People interested in fitness will find all the valid information they need to themselves online. People with a passive interest in fitness are those who look at celeb mags with some fat one from Coronation Street who lost 3 stone by using the 'x' diet or by not dieting but doing 'x' activity every day. You will also have to beat the big names like Men's Fitness. The market would be simply too small as a result to make your magazine viable, IMO (I haven't exactly researched it :P this is simply an opinion). If you really want to write about fitness and stuff then I would suggest starting a blog. If it was good you would probably built up a nice cult following

I would definitely read an Irish fitness blog if it was any good.

I hate fitness magazines. Every issue is the same just instead of "get big arms using this one simple trick" is replaced by "get ripped abs using. . . ." or "get big pecs by. . . .". There's no magic phucking formula, just dedicate yourself to what you want to do and be consistent. All the information is online. There will never be any ground breaking information in a magazine, some huge secret or even honest interviews (most being interviewed in such a magazine would leave out their steroid use).

Reggy · 30-06-2011 06:39PM

There will never be any ground breaking information in a magazine, some huge secret or even honest interviews (most being interviewed in such a magazine would leave out their steroid use).

Im not so sure if I agree entirely. It depends on your opinion of 'ground breaking'. I mean guys like the OP obviously have their fingers firmly on the pulse when it comes to research in the fitness and nutrition field. Thing is, people want digestible, honest and well considered nuggets of information, generally because they are not arsed (dont know how) to read the scientific reports themselves. It would be the job of the editor/contributors to do the actual research and give the reader the info in an unbiased and interesting way.

I think the main issue with any mag that gets most of its capital from advertising is that the companies paying the money to put the mag on the shelf might want more than just a fold out add with a catchy slogan. It would be difficult not to sell your soul and go down the route of not just advertising, but promoting certain types of supplements/diets/products etc...

Its important to keep any operation honest but Im not sure if that would sell. Look at the number of posts in this forum each day relating to 'something I read in a magazine', which in fact turns out to be complete horsesh1t.

There is a niche there I think, but whether or not you could even break even with a magazine that doesn't offer '6 week 6 packs' is another question.

cmyk · 30-06-2011 08:35PM

jive wrote: »

In short, no. People interested in fitness will find all the valid information they need to themselves online.

If that was the case, no magazine or newspaper would exist? Now I realise they've taken quite a hammering due to the above but there's clearly still a demand for the printed word.

Also, there's such a myriad of stuff on the internet now people generally don't know where to begin, which was the very seed for the site. Regular gym-goers/athletes might have enough education on the subject to decipher, but for those who have no idea where to start it's pretty overwhelming.

Hi-carb/Lo-carb/Lo-Fat/HIIT/LSD/metabolic training/circuits/kettlebells and so on.

cmyk · 30-06-2011 08:37PM

SanoVitae wrote: »

Personally, I think you're best sticking with your current website and delivering a free E-zine to those who subscribe to it.

You're possibly very right.

Hanley · 30-06-2011 08:42PM

SanoVitae wrote: »

You do realise that Hanley would want to be on the cover every single issue, yeah?

I'd take 2 out of 3.

RE: the magazine, anyone else suggesting it, probably not. Yourself... hmmm maybe!

Transform · 30-06-2011 09:35PM

cmyk wrote: »

If that was the case, no magazine or newspaper would exist? Now I realise they've taken quite a hammering due to the above but there's clearly still a demand for the printed word.

Also, there's such a myriad of stuff on the internet now people generally don't know where to begin, which was the very seed for the site. Regular gym-goers/athletes might have enough education on the subject to decipher, but for those who have no idea where to start it's pretty overwhelming.

Hi-carb/Lo-carb/Lo-Fat/HIIT/LSD/metabolic training/circuits/kettlebells and so on.

the hardgainer magazine was successful for a number of years but subscription only

Michael 09 · 30-06-2011 11:48PM

Hanley wrote: »

SanoVitae wrote: »

You do realise that Hanley would want to be on the cover every single issue, yeah?

I'd take 2 out of 3.

RE: the magazine, anyone else suggesting it, probably not. Yourself... hmmm maybe!

I think if you read back over the thread I CLEARLY called shotgun on the cover.

Hanley · 30-06-2011 11:58PM

Michael 09 wrote: »

I think if you read back over the thread I CLEARLY called shotgun on the cover.

Shotgun gun rules only apply in lieu of my veto.

Michael 09 · 01-07-2011 12:19AM

Hanley wrote: »

Michael 09 wrote: »

I think if you read back over the thread I CLEARLY called shotgun on the cover.

Shotgun gun rules only apply in lieu of my veto.

I disagree. Surely we can settle this with some sort of dance off?

cmyk · 01-07-2011 07:48AM

Transform wrote: »

the hardgainer magazine was successful for a number of years but subscription only

Yep, good idea, was it subscription only from the start, or did it switch to that? And was subs only internationally or in the states too?

cmyk · 01-07-2011 07:52AM

Michael 09 wrote: »

I disagree. Surely we can settle this with some sort of dance off?

Do it!...but the front cover will be the least difficult part!

SanoVitae · 01-07-2011 08:31AM

cmyk wrote: »

Yep, good idea, was it subscription only from the start, or did it switch to that? And was subs only internationally or in the states too?

It was subsciption only if I remember correctly - Stuart McRobert is based in Cyprus. You could mail him for a free trial copy, which was cool.

I believe the Internet killed it off though - he stopped publishing it in 2004. The magazine was how I find out about the likes of Dr Ken and Brooks D Kubik. Now each have their own individual sites.

You might want to check out Dr Ken's site - you need to donate to access all the articles and videos - might be something you could look into -> http://www.trainhardwithdrken.com/

Gandalph · 01-07-2011 09:50AM

I stopped reading magazines due to the crap I found myself looking at, I particularly remem this one;

1 - "95% of people who play football once a week are generally more content with their life" (ok I see no quarrels with this)

2 - "Due to a microbacterium in the soil" (wait what?)

3 - "That is soaked into your skin and goes into your brain" (uhm ok......)

But if you are going to go ahead and release one good luck

and dont forget to put "HOW TO GET 6PACK IN 2 DAYS!!!!!" on the cover

Zamboni · 01-07-2011 10:28AM

Used to buy Menshealth etc. back around the early naughties when I was more dumb than I am now.
I stopped buying because the advertising increased to the point there was very little reading in it at all.
The content was probaby muck but I knew feck all at that stage so it didn't matter.
Even if you produce a quality mag, you will need advertisers to bring in income and that in itself will put off purchasers.
And even if you produce a quality mag, how do you differentiate your product with the myriad of dogsh1t on the shelves in Eason's?
Unfortunately I think print publishing is a dying game but if you think you can make it work, I wish you all the best and I'll buy a copy (especially if you put me on the front, I'll be happy with the November issue).

jive · 01-07-2011 03:42PM

cmyk wrote: »

If that was the case, no magazine or newspaper would exist? Now I realise they've taken quite a hammering due to the above but there's clearly still a demand for the printed word.

Not really. Most large fitness magazines were probably established before the internet and information was so readily available; also these magazines (at least the ones I've seen) are full of advertisements and generally try to convey that they are the ones who know all the secrets when in reality there are no secrets - but if it'll keep dumbasses reading.... There's still a demand for it but it is a much smaller demand; narrow that demand solely down to Irish readers and it's even smaller again. There is no money to be made in make an Irish fitness magazine although there will be some demand for it, but not enough.

In the words of Nelson from the Simpsons "Ha ha! Your medium is dying".

Is there a market for an Irish fitness magazine?

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