Cycle World Gets ReDrawn and Quartered

John Burns
by John Burns

Now what used to bill itself as “The World’s Biggest Motorcycle Magazine” has been redesigned, and goes from a monthly to a four-times-a-year coffee table book – with a single issue price of $11.99 (though it looks like you can subscribe for a year for just $9.75).

Issue 1, 2018, which we bumped into at Barnes & Noble over the weekend, clocks in at 116 pages. The Ducati Panigale V-4 gets the cover to itself. Inside, features include a history of the AJS Porcupine, a sort of road test of a 2002 Yamaha FZ-1, and and a couple of fun off-road adventures.

It’ll take a while (at least three months) to see if this hip new format works out, we suppose, but we couldn’t help noticing that the reader comments following the announcement of the new look on CW‘s website a couple of days ago are not terribly positive. In fact, they’re overwhelmingly negative. Maybe that’s just the old guard’s final harumph?

It really is a tough row to hoe, keeping online readers current while saving something in reserve for a print magazine. With its extensive archives, you’d think CW would be able to pull it off if anybody could? Especially given that their Swedish owners, Bonnier, have a deep, 200-year history of and commitment to print publishing.

Anyway, it’s a slow news Friday so we thought we’d throw it out there. How many of our cutting-edge MO readers still subscribe to print magazines, which ones and why? And will the new Cycle World format and four-times-a-year frequency fly?

John Burns
John Burns

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  • Disqusted Disqusted on Apr 15, 2019

    The new format is a change, getting off the 'this is new and important' bandwagon. Now, it's hey, here is a nice encyclopedia article about a motorcycle. Only problem is, they already make huge coffee table books that are collections of this same motorcycle history. And what do they sell for on Amazon, where millions of them are for sale used? About $5. Less than the new thinner hard to read mag. Cycle World and Motorcyclist , Cycle, Cycle Guide, are all dead. Firing the senior editors at both Cycle World and Motorcyclist was a clue why. They will print this new mess until it starts losing money then close the doors, blaming it on lack of sales. While MCN will be going strong, not permanently mounted on the manufacturers tit.

  • Disqusted Disqusted on Apr 15, 2019

    Well put.
    Which is why I will not renew my subs to either Motorcyclist OR now Cycle World. MC.com, Cycle News, MCN U.K. for online mat'l., MC Consumer News, Rider, and on occasion, Roadracingworld in print are it for me.

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