Opinion Piece – Angling Web Vs Angling Print

What’s the Future for Angling on the Web and Angling in Print?

WITH ANGLING WEBSITES like FishingMagic offering far more than the printed angling media, and with communication systems getting quicker, cheaper and more streamlined, how long is realistically left for the mainstream angling media in this country?

In the printed media anything the editor or his minions say is gospel! And there is no recourse possible from readers in a reasonable time span, if at all, and it has always been so.

Nowadays an angling article in the form of a blatant plug or biased tackle review on a website won’t stay one sided for too long after a few forum contributors have had their say. A blag fishery report will soon be exposed for what it is, as will those who perpetrated it. And beginners visiting FishingMagic and other sites are soon put onto those tackle and baits which are no more than re-badged and overpriced variations of a theme.

Yes, there is camaraderie! How can any printed magazine compete with the community spirit, the friendships, fish-ins, favours, spats and laughs that FM and other sites deliver in real time, day in and day out?

No wonder some of the writers in weekly newspapers and monthly magazines are trying to debunk and dismiss websites and their contributors, such is the scale of the threat!

Let’s face it; for information, the net wins hands down, the weeklies are so far behind now it is embarrassing. The catch reports on the net are far more up to date, instantly accessible, constantly updated (especially if you ask) and more reliable than anything else on offer. One can also look back over patterns from previous years from catch reports to river levels, etc; something just not possible with a newspaper or magazine.

The weeklies might offer 80 quid for the weekly big fish award but if the web based angling media match this, or even exceed it, what advantage then will the weeklies have?

The weeklies might still have the big ‘name’ or wannabe talking about their method of the week, but I know if I asked a similar question on FM on that same method I would get exactly the same quality of answer and many more ideas thrown in and debated for good measure and without a single mention of any bait firm or tackle company. The net has few superstars, for the lack of a protective editorial buffer to hide behind means it is certainly not the place for ego’s and those whom do not like their words being questioned or criticised.

Now imagine what would happen if a seriously aggressive campaign by FishingMagic, with all but 28,000 members (and a hell of a lot more visitors) and still growing rapidly, convinced even more advertisers that they could enjoy a better financial return for their coin.

That advertising revenue that was once the sole domain of the weeklies would soon start being filtered elsewhere even faster!

Seriously, where would you put your advertising money at this point?

Many young people today are far more comfortable with electronic media than books or papers, and advertisers of products other than fishing tackle and bait have woken up to this. Fishing is slow to follow suit, but it will, you can see it happening all the more every day. Just look at the more forward thinking manufacturers and retailers on FM. These are the successful companies, and is it any wonder?

To put it in a nutshell, if both competing sources of media were to step into a squash court with the mitts off, I know which one I would be backing over the next 10 years!