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For the first time in about four or five years, I decided to purchase a print version of The Racing Post yesterday. For the giveaway price of £4.20, one gets a fairly chunky 140-page paper covering all the days horses, dogs and sports betting.
The first part of the paper is largely given over to racing news, reports from yesterday’s meetings and tipping. And I mean, LOTS of tipping. In fact, there was probably hardly any horses running in big races that weren’t tipped-up by one of the RP’s myriad experts. There is a couple of pages of bloodstock reports. These pages are interspersed with a dozen right-hand-side full-page adverts for bookmakers and numerous other panel adverts around the racecards later in the paper. The coverage of the day’s racing is admirably comprehensive.
The cards and form start after 40 pages or so (with Sha Tin!) and look exactly as they have done for years now which is not particularly a criticism. The main meeting Cheltenham was in pullout form, exactly occupying the centre of the paper which was a good idea. The racing results section was as good as ever. Greyhound coverage was fine with SIS cards in full, big race betting and news & opinion. Sports coverage was modest, leading on rugby & darts but it was a quiet Saturday anyway.
Outside of bookmakers, there seemed to be very little advertising apart from a classified section selling mainly equine stuff, gifts and shares in future champions. One change is a complete lack of any private tipster adverts so if you’re gagging to hear Thommo’s or Naughton’s hot takes, you’re out of luck.
Outside of bookmakers, God knows who’s still buying the Post. My local garage-attached M&S has about 4 copies a day and they’re always still available at 2pm. I do enjoy having a physical newspaper, but one reads a daily paper differently. With the Post, I found myself flipping from card to card all over the paper, and that quickly becomes tiresome and unwieldy compared to using a screen. I’d rather buy a tabloid and have everything over a 2-3 pages to be honest. It really feels like an anachronism nowadays.
Mike
Who buys newspapers these days? A tablet/mobile is far easier to manipulate; an online subscription works out much cheaper than buying the physical version… Oh, and there’s the small matter of protecting the environment.
I cannot remember the last time I bought the Racing Post. At £4.20 I doubt I will be buying it on Saturday any time soon.
“With the Post, I found myself flipping from card to card all over the paper, and that quickly becomes tiresome and unwieldy compared to using a screen.”
That was one good feature of the short lived Racing Plus paper. It showed the races in time order rather than split up by individual tracks, so you did not have to keep turning the paper.
I find a certain glee when someone buys a racing post and leaves it behind in the pub after racing. Plenty ammunition for lining my food waste caddy for a few months.
“Who buys newspapers these days?”
I have a newspaper for 99% of every day for the last 20+ years. Reading a tablet / phone is absolutely nothing like it for me. It will be a very sad day when the printed press inevitably ceases to exist.
I haven’t bought post for long enough, and I am shocked it is over £4.00. Presumably it is £3.50+ on a weekday? I cannot imagine them shifting many, especially on a dour Monday, at that price.
BUY THE SUN
I have a newspaper for 99% of every day for the last 20+ years. Reading a tablet / phone is absolutely nothing like it for me. It will be a very sad day when the printed press inevitably ceases to exist.
Yes, I have a Sunday paper, there’s something about the tactility and wideness of vision with a printed paper that I enjoy, on-line is just too ‘letterboxed’. It’s just not the same for me.
I suppose the printed Post could carry on ad infinitum really if the bookmakers still require it, just at increasing cost to a dwindling private market.
Mike
I haven’t bought a newspaper or hard copy publication of any description in years.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Indeed Mike, the Post should be ok as long as High Street Bookies still exist. At one point I used to buy the Post most days, and the Weekender and the RFO every week without fail. I must have had more money than sense. Which is not the case now, but only because I’m pretty skint 😉 .
BUY THE SUN
I love using my tablet but have given up trying to use a Kindle , I much prefer the a paper or a book , a lot of people said the physical newspaper would disappear but I believe many people akin a paper to breakfast\cup of tea in the act of relaxation , look at resurgence of vinyl , people miss the physical act of buying the album , studying/reading the album cover , I normally spend 20 mins in the bookmakers reading the post
Hope you are right HDLG. I also cannot be doing with a Kindle, so am a regular borrower at my local library. They used to get the FT, Mail, Telegraph, local rag, & Mirror, every day to sit and read. This decades-long tradition has been stopped however, as dreadful ‘Media Tablets’ have apparently replaced the requirement.
Think I am the oldest 42yo on Earth.
BUY THE SUN
I buy one paper each week. Sadly I like the feel of a paper in my mitts
Used to buy post and the weekender for years
Its been 18 yrs since I bought the RP. ITS A rip off
Go racing buy the Sun for 50 p. Use the colour racing section. Simples
The mail. Times or telegraph are my papers of choice
I do enjoy a good read of the current bullshit🐏🐏🐏🐏🐏🐏
Been a good few years since The Sun was ten-bob Ricky. 65p on a weekday, think its 95p on a Saturday with the excellent racing pull-out.
BUY THE SUN
- Total Posts 2553
I buy a newspaper for the race cards every day except Sunday, as the Saturday paper includes the Sunday cards.
Easier to look at rather than go on the Sporting Life site and keep changing from one to the other. The paper doesn’t get wasted either as I have a wood burner.
I used to buy a Racing Post for all the big meetings. As the price got more unaffordable I just got one when I went to the races (to read on the train). I don’t even do that now as it’s too heavy and I can’t be bothered to carry it – and I absolutely refuse to abandon it at that price. As Tank says, at least I want to get some of my investment back by using it for the stove!
I buy it. I use both tablet and paper but fiddling around with a tablet on a freezing day around the paddock on course doesn’t work for me As on a steamy hot day. Well any day frankly
I like all my papers in print
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