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Nefarius
Big Wall climber
somewhere without avatars.........
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Oct 21, 2008 - 08:05pm PT
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I think the cost of the mag, per issue hurt them a lot. Climbers are cheap bastards. It's still really shocking, however, considering total trash like Urban Climber is still afloat. Ugh!
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Bldrjac
Ice climber
Boulder
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Oct 21, 2008 - 08:23pm PT
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It is sad that Alpinist died but is also is not a total surprise.
All the glossiness, quality of writing and photographs were excellent but Christian had too much of a hand in deciding what content would go into each issue and I felt that he was blinded by his own heros and measure of what constituted Alpinism. Not everyone shared his ideals and concept of what was relevant to what readers wanted. Then there is the confusing part of where did buildering, bouldering and slacklining fit into the picture? Was the inclusion of those games an act of desperation to draw in another element of the climbing community? I think it alienated more readers than attracted new subscribers. I just don't think enough climbers related to the content well enough to part with their hard earned cash.
How is it that quality magazines like Vertical and Climb (NOT Climbing) can consistently publish monthly and make money. The quality of these magazines is somewhere between Alpinist and Climbing but the content of these two mags, in my opinion, is better and the writing more interesting and relevant than either Climbing or R&I.
There is a large enough audience to support a qualtiy climbing magazine we just haven't seen someone with the skill, business savvy and understanding of the climbing community produce one yet.
Christian, Katie and all the other people who worked on the mag are good people who worked long hours and were truly dedicated to the spirit and endeavor or publishing the best magazine they could. It was a noble effort and one that the next attempt can learn from. I wish them all the best in the future.
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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Oct 21, 2008 - 08:47pm PT
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All of the real money made by commercial mags comes from ad revenue. This is the harsh truth of commercial publishing. If not for the tenuous fact that the readers (theoretically) buy the stuff they see advertised while they're reading the content, there would be no need for subscribers at all. Alpinist, otoh, was obviously always more of an art-house type publication, and they just generally don't have tremendous lifespans. But a small niche market is now open if anyone wants to step up to the standard they set.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Oct 21, 2008 - 09:51pm PT
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bldrjac: "Christian had too much of a hand in deciding what content would go into each issue . . .. Not everyone shared his ideals and concept of what was relevant to what readers wanted. Then there is the confusing part of where did buildering, bouldering and slacklining fit into the picture?"
I appreciate the critique-- we don't need hero worship --but am doubtful that Alpinist sank mostly because the editors chose the wrong areas/people for their focus.
And I thought that the editor's introduction to the bouldering issue was spot-on. Beckwith is the first person I've seen in print to discuss, briefly but intelligently, the way that Gill's practice in the Tetons in the 1950s emerged out of a bigger alpine context.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Oct 21, 2008 - 10:37pm PT
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"Christian had too much of a hand in deciding what content would go into each issue and I felt that he was blinded by his own heros and measure of what constituted Alpinism."
Christian's vision of the climbing world is exactly what has brought him his success. I would only argue Alpinist needed a better business manager. In the end, the market for extreme alpinism is very small. There will never be a magazine that caters to the whole climbing community. It's too diverse.
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Flashlight
climber
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Oct 21, 2008 - 10:47pm PT
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oplopanax...I don't know on what terms Christian parted from the AAC, however, it must not have been too bad because as soon as Alpinist got started, the AAC was offering Alpinist subscriptions with membership.
"Like them or not, the successful climbing magazines perform a valuable service by sifting through all the twitter and latest-greatest and deciding what's worth publishing."
Good grief! If what is published has been sifted through, I would hate to see the pile that they started with.
I haven't subscribed to anything but Alpinist for quite a while now. I basically got tired of hearing about how some 13 year old kicked everybody's butt in a gym comp somehwere...
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Bldrjac
Ice climber
Boulder
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Oct 22, 2008 - 01:38am PT
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KIK,
Alpinist #1 will stand the test of time as one of the best issues of climbing EVER. In my opinion what this issue covers is exactly what the climbing experience is to most of us who revel in the sport, whether or not we roll in the snow, the ice, the dirt of the desert or the dust of granite. The writing was exceptional. The photography was beautiful and conveyed the climbing experience. There was the part in the back about the three north faces and then in the end The Climbing Notes.......just a quick look into what the future held. There is absolutely something for everyone and stands as a model of supreme publishing.
For me this was the issue that stirred my soul and that stands out as what the magazine stood for and what got climbers excited. Not every issue can be so focused and be so right-on. I think with time some issues of Alpinist began to wander and people who don't know alpine history as well as Christian got lost and didn't find the relevance between themselves and the magazine compelling enough.
I think it might have begun with issue #4. I know who Voytek Kutyka is, what he's done and what the history of the Soviet Union group is but I think many younger climbers do not and don't care. Sure, it's important for them to know but if they don't care enough to splash out $13.oo then what? I loved the unclimbed section of that issue. It got me excited and brought me back into training so I could get strong enough to try those unclimbed faces but I'm not sure it moved everyone that way.
All I'm saying is that I think there began to be some movement away from the current climbing population and that the magazine began losing touch with a majority of climbers. The core climbers who appreciated each issue and subscribed seemed (again, IMO) to be shrinking. As well written as the bouldering issue was, a majority of my friends felt a bit bewildered that it found a place in Alpinist. Especially since there was alot of attention given to bouldering in other magazines. For them it was downhill after that.
JLP has said that "Christian's vision of the climbing world is exactly what has brought him his success", and I agree with that totally. However, there are fewer and fewer climbers who are well-versed and know or care about the history of climbing and so Christian's passion and knowledge of the evolution of our sport is wasted UNLESS someone (business manager?) can do something with it.
Honestly, I really don't know. I don't know what went wrong. I like to think that there are enough people out there who will support a magazine like Alpinist but the sport of climbing is so fractured up into little specialized groups that it is more difficult than ever to find the common ground that we all share and that feeds us. For an ambitious project like Alpinist to succeed it has to find the common ground that all climbers share and be willing and able to express that on paper, in the written and the visual image in order to succeed. We've come so close. Like trying to grip the final hold on the boulder problem that we keep slipping off of at the end of the day.
It will happen.
I'm just not sure when.
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Michael Kennedy
Social climber
Carbondale, Colorado
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Oct 22, 2008 - 04:45am PT
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Well put, Jack.
Alpinist was trying to be a (mostly) reader-supported magazine, hence the high cover and subscription prices and the low number of ads relative to editorial pages. In this business model (sorry for the use of the dreaded term) subscribers are the most important and the most profitable revenue source.
The simple fact is that there were not enough people willing to spend $46 a year for a subscription to Alpinist. They needed probably twice as many subscribers, say 15,000-20,000, to make it work.
This may have happened over time, and God only knows they tried. Christian, Marc, Katie, Erik, Dan, and the whole crew put in a massive amount of hard work (and in Marc's case, a very substantial amount of money) over the past six years. Some issues were brilliant, others not, but it was a great run overall. We'll miss Alpinist.
I'd agree that "... the sport of climbing is so fractured up into little specialized groups that it is more difficult than ever to find the common ground that we all share and that feeds us." But the common ground is still there. Part of it lies in aspiring to an ideal, as Dolomite says upthread.
Climbing is a tree with many branches. The branches nurture and energize and keep the tree alive and growing; the roots and trunk support the branches and allow them to spread. It's tempting to think that "my" branch is the most important, or the best, or the most fulfilling, but we need all of them for climbing to remain vital. But it may be that it's easier to fight about our differences than to celebrate what binds us together.
Just some thoughts from a well-past-the-expiration-date climber (not an alpinist or bouderer or rock climber or mountaineer, just a climber).
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Oct 22, 2008 - 07:03am PT
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Magazine publishing is a dicey business. On average it takes three to five years for a new mag to get into the black, which is about average for any small business. Many fail.
Even if a title comes from a large publishing house, it still takes time.
For a new mag one of the biggest obstacles is for a printer to take on the title, as many printers have seen too many mags fail and been left out of pocket.
I have been the launch editor of magazines in California, England and Ireland, and a journalist for 35 years in five countries working on a number of publications and broadcasters, including national newspapers and enough mags to not care less. I know what I am talking about.
Alpinist was a beautiful magazine with great content and very high production values. Climbing and R&I are nowhere near its quality.
I am not too impressed by the article by Dougald MacDonald. There is something a bit smug about what he writes. Perhaps it is just my (mis) perception. Maybe it is his association with other titles, or perhaps he did not ‘agree’ with the Alpinist editorial team. Journalists, like actors, need thick skins to survive, but sometimes temperament does get in the way and cloud one’s thoughts. I don't really know because I do not know the bloke nor am I familiar with his writing.
Long live Alpinist in our minds and thoughts.
EDIT
It is a good to see Michael's input ^^^ on the subject. I have only met you once (or maybe more???) back in the mid-1970s Michael but I respect you as a climber and journalist, and what you wrote above is more in tune with what the reality is, though others on this thread have also given some good input on the subject.
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Oct 22, 2008 - 08:25am PT
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The simple fact is that there were not enough people willing to spend $46 a year for a subscription to Alpinist. They needed probably twice as many subscribers, say 15,000-20,000, to make it work.
Supposedly 6 month circulation of Climbing is about 45,000. So call that generously 7500 subscriptions.
There are about 28 million golfers in the US and two major golf publications with monthly circulation of about 1.5 million each. So penetration of this recreation market is about 10%. Annual subscriptions are about $15.00.
Let's assume that there are 500,000 climbers (that is intended to be generous). 10% penetration means a maximum market of about 50,000 subscribers.
I think getting 40% of the market at 3 times the price (compared to golf mags or climbing mags) is unlikely.
Suppose you had 20,000 subscribers at 46/yr. That's $920,000 revenues before advertising. A sizable chunk of that is going to the printer and the US postal service. (Here is my WAG at that - $3 per issue or about $720K.) Maybe somebody could toss real values for those two numbers in, subtract their total from 920K and see how many employees the remainder would support.
Here is a good hand-waving start. A decent business really needs to generate on the order of $100,000 per ful-time employee.
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Tahoe climber
Trad climber
a dark-green forester out west
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Oct 22, 2008 - 11:03am PT
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Nice content, though a bit hard to get psyched about all of it.
Too expensive, though.
Sorry to see them go, but success is not guaranteed.
TC
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Oct 22, 2008 - 11:18am PT
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I'd like to see something like the prototype magazine he was working on a few years ago. Seemed it found some of the same energy as Alpinist, but in other sports as well - something that would go up against Outside magazine. I could read about Alpine climbing in this kind of context, among the K2 of waves of the surfing world, for example. Similar energy, similar drives, similar people. I would say there is more commonality in the energy between alpine climbing and some areas of other sports than there is between alpine climbing and, say, bouldering or sport climbing. It's for this reason I don't pick up R&I or Climbing. R&I had a cool Alpine article recently in an issue I received for free in the mail - I read it, but was really turned off by the dichotomy, the fracturedness, the inconsistency of everything else presented in the issue, advertising included. Scantly dressed 14 yr old girls bouldering just isn't something I need to keep current with. I don't really care if they are "climbing". I think Alpinist did well presenting a uniform product - just too small an audience.
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Ain't no flatlander
climber
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Oct 22, 2008 - 12:59pm PT
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"I'd like to see something like the prototype magazine he was working on a few years ago. Seemed it found some of the same energy as Alpinist, but in other sports as well - something that would go up against Outside magazine. I could read about Alpine climbing in this kind of context, among the K2 of waves of the surfing world, for example. Similar energy, similar drives, similar people."
JLP, you're describing the second incarnation of Summit, which lasted ten issues in the early 90s. It was closer to Alpinist in look and feel but covered other mutual sports. The Alpinist film festival featured tele skiing and surfing this year, in addition to Simpson's excellent Beckoning Silence (Eiger Nordwand history). So CB was dabbling but the print mag couldn't go to far (slacklining is the modern hackysack, gag).
But we all know the real reason they failed...the center of the climbing universe is Boulder not Jackson ;-)
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Oct 22, 2008 - 01:03pm PT
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bldrjac: "I like to think that there are enough people out there who will support a magazine like Alpinist but the sport of climbing is so fractured up into little specialized groups that it is more difficult than ever to find the common ground that we all share and that feeds us. For an ambitious project like Alpinist to succeed it has to find the common ground that all climbers share and be willing and able to express that on paper, in the written and the visual image in order to succeed. We've come so close. Like trying to grip the final hold on the boulder problem that we keep slipping off of at the end of the day."
This analysis strikes me as far more plausible. Alpinism used to be the common ground that joined rock climbers, ice climbers and, yes, even boulderers, but that's no longer the case. It's just another niche-specialty, and in the US, as opposed to Europe, a depressingly tiny one. And that's one of the really tragic things about Alpinist's failure.
The attempt to show that alpinism was the historic context to which all our specialties belonged, failed precisely because most climbers don't care or else don't want that to be true. Even the alpinists, like yourself, rejected the very attempt. Alpinists in the US imagine themselves as radically different from (better than) boulderers, and the boulderers return the scorn. Each specialty prefers to imagine itself as a self-contained world, unrelated to or even at war with the others.
That's tragic not simply because it shows a lack of historical consciousness, but also because of its political implications. Even a unified climbing community would be a tiny political voice. Broken up into so many alienated market niches, we have nothing.
I do wonder if Alpinist could've eked out another year or two had not the warehouse burned down.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Oct 22, 2008 - 01:18pm PT
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One element to add the discussion is demographics. The population of the US and Canada, which I guess accounts for 90% of Alpinist subscribers and readers, is aging. Alpinism and related activities are for the most part engaged in by those from 15 - 50, more usually 18 - 35. There may actually be a declining number of people engaging in alpinism ("alpinist-days"), though there are clearly many impressive things being done. Improved equipment and technique, information, and the ease of travel, all have helped with that. But the total number may still be down.
I believe that US land management agencies (NPS, BLM, Forest Service) to some extent track backcountry use, and that overnight trips in such places have declined in number over the last decade or more. Notwithstanding the crowds on certain trade routes (Denali, Rainier, El Capitan), and the growth of commercial climbing, the total numbers are less. The trendy activities (bouldering, slacklining, bongo drumming) often require less commitment of time and life.
At the same time, older and perhaps fading alpinists do tend to have more resources, and rosy memories. But an aging population doesn't bode well for sales.
The golf publications mentioned seem a good example of the chicken/egg problem, as they have good demographics. Good sales means good advertising revenue which in turn means lower magazine price. But critical mass is hard to accomplish.
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The Wedge
Boulder climber
Bishop, CA
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Oct 22, 2008 - 01:25pm PT
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Hey Mick, nice read. Still with SMC hope all is well across the great big sea. Ya, I'm going to say a prayer now and creamate all my copies. Ashes to ashes........L8er eric
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Mick Ryan
Trad climber
Kendal, English Lake District
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 22, 2008 - 01:53pm PT
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Hi Eric --- you still alive? Tell SP I will call - busy here making sure that UKClimbing.com stays afloat and as Dougald says it is going well. She rides the crest of a wave - our 'business model' is based on the needs of the every day climber.
Moving back to the USA next Spring so will be out West.
I miss the USA, and her good people and above all, the land.
Mick
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looking sketchy there...
Social climber
Latitute 33
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Oct 22, 2008 - 02:44pm PT
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Some very interesting (and informed) post-mortems. For what it is worth, I'm not really sure that I agree with Jack's comments. Yes, from a pure "alpinistic" viewpoint, Alpinist veered offcourse. But imho, the magazine had more recently begun to evolve in a direction that had broader appeal (not less), without catering to the lowest common denominator.
To fault some minor mis-steps in content decisions is somewhat laughable, given the huge variation in (dumbing down of) content quality in the other climbing magazines.
Even though I'm mostly a rock climber, all aspects of climbing still have an inherant appeal. The appeal does not lie in the numbers and big names, but rather in the characters, the stories and the context in which events occur. Alpinist made an attempt to give voice to these, a voice that is generally missing -- except in the most superficial way -- from the US climbing media.
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wbw
climber
'cross the great divide
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Oct 22, 2008 - 02:50pm PT
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For years, I've had the feeling that I had wasted my money after buying a climbing mag. You lay down the money, go home and read the rag in a very short time period, and it's over. (I've never subscribed to one.) And in general I have also had a feeling of being inadequte after spending my half-hour reading. In current mags., given all of the advertising, that feeling of wasting money has been increased.
The old magazines focused on an aspect of the sport that has mostly been forgotten: the soul of the "sport" and the experience . . . why do we climb-kinda-stuff. Everything is so focused on speed, and high-level performance anymore that I've lost interest. I'm not completely disinterested in those aspects of climbing, but I'm just as interested in the views, the travel experience, and the sense of being personally empowered (if only for a short period of time) after accomplishing a difficult goal in demanding circumstances. I think that Alpinist was an attempt to reconnect with some of those vague, ill-defined reasons that many of us climb, (R.I.P.), and the fact that it failed says a lot about how much climbing has changed.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Oct 22, 2008 - 03:12pm PT
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Excuse me.
I'm a little lost here.
I thought I was at the Taco, but this is obviously an interesting and well written climbing related dialogue between and about actual persons without rancor and mudslinging. Sorry to interrupt; I'll have to go see where I got lost.
BTW, too bad about Alpinist, but while there may be too many climbers there are apparently not enough.
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