Motorcycle magazine titles continue to close, as the market consolidates and print titles struggle to adapt to a rapidly changing media landscape.
The latter was the bigger issue for Motorcycle Consumer News, which closed its doors officially at the start of this month.
Motorcycle Consumer News was in business for 50 years in the motorcycle industry, and distinguished itself as being 100% subscriber supported and advertisement-free.
Motorcycle Consumer News, as we know it, came to be in 1991, but the publication goes all the way back to 1969, when it was started by Roger Hull under the name Road Rider.
Perhaps the closest thing to Consumer Reports in the motorcycling realm, Motorcycle Consumer News had stricter guidelines than most other publications for reviewing motorcycles and other moto products.
Unfortunately, the publication had a rough transition to digital form, and the subscription-based model wasn’t effective online, especially as the paywall shielded the title from organic discovery, like Google searches and social media.
This meant a dwindling of revenues for the publication, and for other titles in the publisher’s house, which leads us to this current and unfortunate news.
In a world where traditional media publishing titles are passing off press releases as stories, trying to sell you two-wheeled wares, and even planning press launches for motorcycle brands, now is more important than ever to have independent voices in motorcycle journalism.
If you would like to support Asphalt & Rubber‘s continued independence, we encourage you to sign up for an A&R Pro subscription.
Source: Motorcycle Consumer News
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