3 ms·

Private Eye (in the UK) is thriving as a paper publication without very much of an online presence. Audited circulation of nearly a quarter of a million (https

by rwmj 3y ago

Private Eye (in the UK) is thriving as a paper publication without very much of an online presence. Audited circulation of nearly a quarter of a million (https://www.abc.org.uk/product/3379 https://www.abc.org.uk/product/3379).

some_random 3y ago
What's the consumer base like? I highly doubt that 20-40 year olds are reading it much if that's the case
s_dev 3y ago
There is a Michellin starred restaurant operating in Greenland that people travel all that way to. Sometimes certain things succeed despite choosing circumstances that work against them and not because of those choices. That same restaurant would be making a lot more money if it moved to New York city but the Chef probably doesn't want that. Private Eye would have more money and more eyeballs if it had a sufficient online presence but the simple answer is Ian Hislop doesn't want that and I would imagine he would say "We're doing just fine, having not invested a lot in to online presence for Private Eye" and he'd be right. What works for Private Eye might not work for the New York Times.
- michaelt 3y ago
  > Private Eye would have more money and more eyeballs if it had a sufficient online presence Are the publications putting everything online making loads of money by doing so? Because they sure don't act like it. They pay like shit, and they keep writing articles about "the ugly, ongoing collapse of U.S. journalism"
  - tim333 3y ago
    Indeed anything online tends to be fairly easy to pirate or bypass paywalls for. Whereas for Private Eye there is not really an easy way to get it without paying. You could go read it in a library I guess but that's kind of a pain.
adhesive_wombat 3y ago
That's a funny one too me, because they do some very good journalism that spans many many years on many people up to no good. Frequently, they're the only ones doing anything more investigative than rewriting press releases and newswires and they must have an absolutely enormous library of material on public figures to be able to connect the dots that they do. But when they report on something, it's gone from the public view in a few weeks as the only place you could find it would be your own archive, assuming it goes back that far (and you wish to dedicate the space in your house), or a major library of which there are only a handful in the country that would maintain an indefinite archive. Something more impactful than a report on another suspiciously "bungled" contract by a councillor would be to be able to see the other articles they've done on that person over the decades. Even if there was, say, a year-long delay in putting them in the archive, there's a difference between "Eyes passim" (doubly irritating as there's also no thematic index and hundreds of back issues you'd need to look in) and seeing the older reports in front of you.

by rwmj 3y ago

some_random 3y ago

What's the consumer base like? I highly doubt that 20-40 year olds are reading it much if that's the case

s_dev 3y ago

There is a Michellin starred restaurant operating in Greenland that people travel all that way to. Sometimes certain things succeed despite choosing circumstances that work against them and not because of those choices. That same restaurant would be making a lot more money if it moved to New York city but the Chef probably doesn't want that. Private Eye would have more money and more eyeballs if it had a sufficient online presence but the simple answer is Ian Hislop doesn't want that and I would imagine he would say "We're doing just fine, having not invested a lot in to online presence for Private Eye" and he'd be right. What works for Private Eye might not work for the New York Times.

michaelt 3y ago
> Private Eye would have more money and more eyeballs if it had a sufficient online presence Are the publications putting everything online making loads of money by doing so? Because they sure don't act like it. They pay like shit, and they keep writing articles about "the ugly, ongoing collapse of U.S. journalism"
- tim333 3y ago
  Indeed anything online tends to be fairly easy to pirate or bypass paywalls for. Whereas for Private Eye there is not really an easy way to get it without paying. You could go read it in a library I guess but that's kind of a pain.

adhesive_wombat 3y ago

That's a funny one too me, because they do some very good journalism that spans many many years on many people up to no good. Frequently, they're the only ones doing anything more investigative than rewriting press releases and newswires and they must have an absolutely enormous library of material on public figures to be able to connect the dots that they do. But when they report on something, it's gone from the public view in a few weeks as the only place you could find it would be your own archive, assuming it goes back that far (and you wish to dedicate the space in your house), or a major library of which there are only a handful in the country that would maintain an indefinite archive. Something more impactful than a report on another suspiciously "bungled" contract by a councillor would be to be able to see the other articles they've done on that person over the decades. Even if there was, say, a year-long delay in putting them in the archive, there's a difference between "Eyes passim" (doubly irritating as there's also no thematic index and hundreds of back issues you'd need to look in) and seeing the older reports in front of you.