[ken park]

You want more only you can help! - Next event you think is worthy - take your camera and get yourself a digital recorder to take in a quick interview of the 5W's and submit it! - Everyone is using the cloud now to send stuff in

No magazine is sending reporters to events or has the money to pay for gas/hotels etc
I admit what I got paid from MAN may of covered my gas money at best

Originally Posted by OLD PRAIRIE RED NECK

Have you emptied your Canada post mail box lately? Oh ya! It's on the rise!

Seriously though one thing that frustrates me about the MAAC mag is the photos of really nice planes and really great looking events and then virtually nothing in the text aside from maybe a name and a date. I want to know more!
That is where a magazine with real articles would fill a place and not be in conflict Kieth.

Every club and RC community has people that build and do some really great stuff and we need to showcase our talent!

[Morison]

Originally Posted by OLD PRAIRIE RED NECK

Seriously though one thing that frustrates me about the MAAC mag is the photos of really nice planes and really great looking events and then virtually nothing in the text aside from maybe a name and a date. I want to know more!

I'm right with you, but often I can only do so much with what I get... sometimes getting names of people in the pictures can be a challenge.

Originally Posted by OLD PRAIRIE RED NECK

Every club and RC community has people that build and do some really great stuff and we need to showcase our talent!

Which is exactly the sort of content I'm looking for, and trying to make room for. I just don't get that sort of material often enough.

(I regularly get obits, but I think that's recognising our 'greats' too late...)

[RC_MAN]

I still have the Canadian Magazines from ten years ago. We had pictures and articles from the first Jets Over Leamington. I looked so young then

[OLD PRAIRIE RED NECK]

Originally Posted by ken park

get yourself a digital recorder to take in a quick interview of the 5W's and submit it! - Everyone is using the cloud now to send stuff in

I got the camera bit then you lost me. I have a digital camera and can put a few words together but if it can only be accepted in some high tech format that I don't access to then that would leave me out.

Also we as the general modeling public cannot be expected to produce the quality in photos and text that you produce Ken. That will be a problem?

The other concern I have from a personal standpoint is that if the material submitted is not "mainstream" as in not what you see on the average hobby shop shelf or on the average club flight line then it won't be deemed to have enough mass appeal to make the cut. Some of the things the crowd I fly with does is more on the experimental/innovative side and less "buy this at your LHS". I believe there is a place for both approaches.

[OLD PRAIRIE RED NECK]

Originally Posted by Morison

(I regularly get obits, but I think that's recognising our 'greats' too late...)

100% behind you on that one!

[DO335]

Originally Posted by Morison

There was an independent RC magazine in Canada that started up just under a decade ago, but it lasted about 3 issues.
I've been toying with the idea of doing an independent online magazine at some point, but it would be in conflict with what I'm doing for MAC right now.

I disagree.

IMO, MAAC's publication is in no way anything close to a magazine. There is nothing topical or compelling about it. It is, at best, no more than a club level newsletter.

If you did a legit magazine offering, by print or in electronic format there would be no conflict with MAAC at all in that.

However, given the paltry market size and the extremely limited advertising potential as a result, which equaled insufficient revenues, which is the reason for Dean's termination of Fly RC Canada and Drive RC Canada (nevertheless, I supported him as one of his advertisers and provided several free promotional items to him), you'd have quite the task to monetize your project.

We also know that the RC Canada crowd is astonishingly parsimonious. So sales in viable numbers would also be difficult to achieve.

Bottom line: extremely limited advertising due to miniscule market size, growing smaller with current and growing advertizing dollar allocation trends coupled with insignificant copy sales.

A massive challenge, easily capable of being no more than a time and money pit.

[Morison]

Originally Posted by DO335

Bottom line: extremely limited advertising due to miniscule market size, growing smaller with current and growing advertizing dollar allocation trends coupled with insignificant copy sales.
A massive challenge, easily capable of being no more than a time and money pit.

Which is why I've only been toying with the idea. The economies of publishing have changed drastically in recent years, if you consider being online only, but there is still a 'critical mass' needed to be viable.

[bcsaltchucker]

Originally Posted by DO335

Bottom line: extremely limited advertising due to miniscule market size, growing smaller with current and growing advertizing dollar allocation trends coupled with insignificant copy sales.

A massive challenge, easily capable of being no more than a time and money pit.

miniscule market size is just the excuse for the lazy businessman. Relying on traditional print ad revenue is folly in 2014.

Look at Bruce simpson of RC ModelReviews. He is a one man show, overhead of nearly nothing, living off the revenue of his monetized videos. Contributes more to the RC model media that the entire population of flyers in New Zealand. I watch all his videos (well his focus in RC is pretty identical to mine). Brings in an audience of tens of thousands a week. And his show is small potatoes, limited to one guy's musings.

Imagine a team of contributors delivering a ton more content - all video, goes to air same day you shoot, you know your revenue by the next day. Instant feedback, tweaking, online forum to point you to what content the audience wants more of. Totally could blow away the magazines out of business permanently if done right. Like the small newspapers around here I used to advertise in - nobody with ambition spends on paper ads in them any more, it's all internet, social media, video.