Interview with Gareth Purnell, Editor of tcfA new monthly magazine has hit the news stands with the former editor of Improve Your Coarse Fishing in the chair at tcf (Total Coarse Fishing).
Gareth Purnell, once feted for turning IYCF into Britain’s top selling angling title, has his former baby firmly in his sights. FishingMagic caught up with him hard at work planning issue number two. FishingMagic: Gareth, you were the darling of EMAP when you turned Improve Your Coarse Fishing (IYCF) into a top-seller. Now the trade press says you’re aiming straight for their readership. Is that true..? Gareth: I didn’t feel like I was the darling while I was there – more like a lot ofbloody hard work. But it did give me a brilliant understanding of what makesthe all-round angler tick and we did have great sales figures – some issuessold over 100,000 copies. With tcf we’re aiming at a similar readership, theall-round angler, but I’m being very careful to make sure that you willlearn a lot if you are a beginner, but also learn loads if you are anexperienced angler. I always have the mantra that if I learn something eachtime I do an issue (and I always do) then the reader will. But tcf is justas much about inspiring you to go out there and do it with great pics ofquality fish on venues all of us would love to fish. A strong tcf will begood for angling as a whole. FishingMagic: So are we about to see a circulation war then? Spods at 50 paces..? And do you think the general market, which also includes Coarse Fisherman and Coarse Angling Today, has room for another title..? Gareth: New titles tend to grow the market, although obviously there is only so much advertising spend. And it’s certainly a new sector for DHP, which has strong match and carp titles but has never really cracked the general angler market. You can’t expect to take IYCF on circulation-wise straight away.EMAP have a lot of clout distribution-wise and IYCF has about 15,000 subscribers, whereas we have 500 so far. There’s a long way to go, and it’s much harder to get independents to stock a new title than you might believe (they often just return it without ever putting it on the shelves). The important thing is to establish a firm foundation first and produce avery good magazine which gets people talking. I think we are doing that.Also we have done a lot of TV advertising for tcf and it may well reach acompletely new audience. People have to remember that only about 10-20% ofanglers buy angling magazines. That means there is room. FishingMagic: In your leader column, you’re questioning the single-species ethos which seems to have overtaken fishing over the last couple of decades. A generation ago, you fished for tench or carp in the summer, pike in the winter and everything else in between. Why do you think this change occurredand is tcf going to change things..? Gareth: People in all walks of life are led by trends and trends are set by those we look up to. In angling these people are given their profile by magazines,and magazines have become more and more specialised. With this established,the web has made it easier and easier for people to contact like-mindedanglers. There’s nothing wrong with specialising at all. But there is alsonothing wrong with enjoying coarse angling in all its forms and keeping yourangling varied and fun, and that’s what tcf is all about. FishingMagic: tcf has followed some of the distinctive features of IYCF during your editorship, notably the specimen fish badges and monthly challenge. How popular is this kind of stuff..? Gareth: I’ll hold up my hand and say I was responsible for bringing in awards forcatches of quality fish on IYCF. Does that give me copyright on the idea? The answer is that for the ordinary angler, these are really, reallypopular. With tcf we have quite classy metallic badges rather than sew-onbadges that I think will appeal to adults and kids. They are really worthhaving and they are free. They won’t appeal to the out-and-out barbelspecialist for example, because the targets will be too low for them. But ifyou are the sort of angler who, like me, would be proud of a 6lb tench orbream or a roach of nearly 2lb, than have a go at them! FishingMagic: tcf certainly goes into things in detail. Issue one has a nine-page special on pellet fishing, covering everything to what pellets are available and how to hook them, to how long different brands take to break down in the water. Is this kind of detail what anglers want, rather than the much more concise how-tos you get in the weeklies and other titles..? Gareth: We’re trying to do guides that cover all the bases and as I said earlierprovide stacks of info and how-to instruction, plus plenty of DIY, for boththe newcomer and the more experienced angler. For example, there’s a trickto drilling pellets without cracking them, and we show you how to ‘noose’ apellet plus feed balls of pellets. You can’t do that in a couple of pages. We are also looking to do live features at the end of some of theses guides,putting the theory into practice. The next issue has 13 pages on hemp andtares, and a guide to waggler fishing. I had a nice 25lb bag of roach ontares in the live feature from a venue where they’d never been fed before tomy knowledge, which is interesting in itself.
FishingMagic: The tench feature was beautifully put together and contained a wealth of information about old tinca tinca, before a seven-pager from Ian Welch on how to catch them, which really made you want to reach for those tench rods. Is this going to be a general theme for future issues; take one species in depth? Gareth: The whole theme of the magazine is to inspire you to get out there and do it and top quality photography and design is crucial to this. We are havingthis species spotlight in every issue, including content from SparsholtCollege’s fish experts. Each month the spotlight is followed by Ian Welch’son the bank feature which is really good, right up to date. Let’s face itfishing has changed a lot in the last ten years. This month we’re looking atcrucians – you wouldn’t believe how Ian fishes for them at night! FishingMagic: The magazine not only goes into detail, it’s a big read weighing in at 164 pages from its launch issue, with what seems a fairly low ratio of adverts for something that size. Launch issues are always a labour of love, how confident are you this kind of quality is going to be maintained..? Gareth: The magazine is great value for money editorially, with only about 20% of the 164 pages adverts. This won’t be changing in the foreseeable future. Interms of the quality I believe the magazine will get better, because we nowhave something to work on. But the feedback we’ve been getting from readersafter the first issue has been unbelievably positive and we seem to have hitthe right note. One reader who buys all the magazines rang me to say thatit’s the best angling magazine he’s ever seen! FishingMagic: Are you going online and planning a website..? If so how will it dovetail with the magazine..? The website that dovetails with all the DHP magazines is www.Total-Fishing.com . The forums are really busy on this site. To coincide with the launch of tcf we’ve set up a new Coarse forum and are trying to move the match anglers over to a match forum – we’d like to see more generalanglers on Total-Fishing.com. You can find out what’s in the latest issuesof all the DHP magazines on this site and there is also a sister site, www.total-fishingclub.com which holds a massive database of instructional content. This is a subscription site but you get a free gift worth more than the cost of joining. FishingMagic: IYCF changed and became more carp-oriented after you left. The difference was noticeable within a couple of issues. If you’d stayed in the hotseat there would you have changed this in this way or not? Do you think the carp bubble will ever burst..? Gareth: The answer is no. Just because everyone fishes commercials doesn’t mean that’s what they want to read about all the time. The Internet is theinformation source now and magazine have had to change – they must inspirepeople to do it, be it walking, skiing, collecting stamps or fishing. Mymagazines have always had lots of varied fishing in them and that’s the wayit will stay, and would have stayed on IYCF. FishingMagic: Going back to tcf, one or two of your contributors are very well-known, others less so. Are you on the look-out for new talent and what one piece of advice would you give anyone who wanted to break into being an angling writer..? Gareth: Photographic skills are critical to break into the market as a whole as anangling writer. You need to provide features that are ready for publicationto the smaller circulation, lower budget titles, with quality high-resimages. That way you will get a name for yourself. For me the writing is lessimportant – re-writing copy so it’s right for our readers is what we do. Ona magazine like tcf it’s different. We are using professional photographersto get the images we want – in fact only Ian Welsh is supplying his ownpictures and even with this feature these are being backed up with livestuff. The one exception is we are carrying an Angling Adventures seriesabout overseas fishing. This series is about getting there, being there, notabout how to catch. The latest one is about targeting giant snakeheads inMalaysia. It’s a read, rather than a how-to feature, so the writing and theimages are important. The series is all about freshwater species. If anyoneout there has an adventure to tell and the pics to back it up, they shouldemail me at gareth@dhpub.co.uk. |
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