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Sam
Bruce Millington is actually the sports editor – and I can’t believe you’re so hot and bothered about the tipster ads. They’re hardly worth it.
It was a very sad day in the history of the paper when ‘Five For Fun’ was replaced by the musings of the twat that is Big Dave Osbourne.
If you have any influence Lincoln Duncan, I suggest you march into Chris Smith’s office and tell him that the public (i.e. me) want it back. I’m even prepared to sacrifice Howard Wright and/or Alistair Down at a push!
I am aware that Bruce Millington is the Sports Editor.<br>Lincoln some of these tipsters have been taken to court, high court, on a regular basis because of the extraordinary nature of their claims. These tipsters charge huge fees, thousands. Among their claims they often say "all selections proofed to the Racing Post". to give credibility to their claims. So where then is this proofing? At the same time the Racing Post rakes in many many thousands in advertising fees. I`m pleased to say I dont subscribe to tipsters, but many others have been duped into parting with their hard earned. So this is basically dishonest right?<br>Hardly worth it? <br>They cost punters millions and rake in similar amounts for the RP so why the hike. <br>Oh, and I forgot to mention the 7/7 emergency edition and the keep Our Kieran in Racing Campaign. <br>
I have almost always supported the RP on the forum because it provides such a comprehensive form service. The latest price rises put the cost of a weekly subscription up to £10.70, which can only appeal to hobbyists and professionals: the occasional punter will only buy it on days they intend to have a bet.
I’m having a break from betting at the moment, so I’m not buying it at all, although I normally get it every day.<br>Come April, I will resume buying it because if you take this game seriously you need the RP and a form book as well. At present the RP website provide free access to form, but in the next few months I believe they will make some charge for this service or ask for a subscription.
It’s probably worth paying the present price for the RP, but they will have to be very careful about charging for using the(excellent) website. I would be very surprised if they get much revenue from the site at the moment. Maybe the profitable paper has to carry the loss-making website.
DJ – yes, Five For Fun was good, and always a bit of fun to compile on the odd occasion. I’ll pass on your comments to Mr Smith . . . ;)
SS – I’m afraid I have to come over all Wernher von Braun and say ‘that’s not my department’, although I would hazard a guess that the amounts you are talking about are at least a 0 too high (although that is not your point, admittedly).
The two editions you mention may not have been to your taste, but 363 out of 365 ain’t bad . . .
Seems to me the mre they charge, the more money they will make. That might sound the most obvious statement of the year but the punter only has two options:
1) Pay extra and buy it
2) Go Without
Most punters whilst moaning, are going to put up with it and shell out. The only way the price goes down is if no-one buys it anymore. I stopped buying a couple of months ago and just use the online facility.
One of the things that does irritate me is that they charge so much and then fill the paper full of adverts. If you want us to pay £1.50 then at least make sure the paper contains quailty rather than ads for dodgy tipsters.<br>
Quote: from Artemis on 7:11 pm on Jan. 30, 2007[br]At present the RP website provide free access to form, but in the next few months I believe they will make some charge for this service or ask for a subscription.
Where did you here this?
If they start to charge for the database, what other options are there (apart from the Sporting Life, whose lifetime form doesn’t even say whether a horse ran in a chase or hurdle FFS)
Raceform is part of the RP, I believe – is this correct?
Re the proofing for tipping lines.<br>They used to charge 1.50 a day in order to fax over tips.<br>It’s not that difficult to be ‘approved by them’ as all I had to do was make a level stake profit for 3 months.<br>So by just finding 1 winner and then stopping used to be enough to qualify. That would enable one to claim an 100% strike rate and also ‘another winning month’.
With regard to advertising with them the prices are horrendous. The other problem is its hard to get new customers as most readers would only see the betting shop edition thats pinned up on the betting shop wall and that issue does not carry advertsing. I think the bookmakers wanted this as Hills for example would not want readers looking at maybe better odds from Coral or Betfred.
Brimadon have a deal where their ads are always on the Pricewise page as I suppose they think that is feature most readers look at first.
David Ashforth has wriiten articles about the likes of Isiris in the past but Chris Smith as editor must never ever bite the hand that feeds him!
Amother moan is that its hard to get a review of any book not published by Raceform of any of the other MGM companies and most of the critics they use also write books published by Raceform so no one ever gets a bad write up.
I miss The Sportsman but still purchase the Racing Post every day. I think the price rises is all down to ‘Sly’ Bailey as she wants as much money out of the paper before she attempts to sell it off.
Quote: from davidbrady on 9:40 pm on Jan. 30, 2007[br]
Quote: from Artemis on 7:11 pm on Jan. 30, 2007[br]At present the RP website provide free access to form, but in the next few months I believe they will make some charge for this service or ask for a subscription.
Where did you here this?
If they start to charge for the database, what other options are there (apart from the Sporting Life, whose lifetime form doesn’t even say whether a horse ran in a chase or hurdle FFS)
Raceform is part of the RP, I believe – is this correct?<br>
Attheraces site gives full form, gg.com the same and Superform can be accessed for free, and I suspect there are others. Varying degrees of detail admittedly, but there’s probably enough to suit most. If all these offer data for free I’m sure there would be a few defectors if the Racing Post started charging.
Actually I do buy the Racing Post on a regular basis, simply because I’m an semi-‘old fashioned soul’ who prefers the printed version to work with.
(Waves walking stick) It’s not like it was in my day, you know!
Rob<br>
davidbrady,
I haven’t heard it from anywhere, it’s just my opinion based on the way the site is developing.
I much prefer the paper version of the RP, but if more people stop buying it and use the website instead, where will the revenue come from to meet the rising costs?
The RP website is quite impressive and requires very high maintenance with all the data that it contains, even allowing for the fact that such data is already collected for the RP and Raceform.
RP and Raceform do seem to be connected in that they share information and publish books jointly, but I don’t know who owns the shares or controls the two companies.
Together, they almost have a monopoly of collecting racing form, so they can control the price that we have to pay for it. They cannot control how many people are prepared to pay this price – that is a judgement they must make based on how they perceive the demand for their product. My gut feeling is that the price of the RP will continue to rise at about 10 percent a year and that the website will start to charge in a few months time. It’s hard to predict what form this charge might take. It might involve some kind of incentive to buy the paper edition or subscribe to RUK or Raceform. We’ll have to wait and see, although those in the know at RP will already have their agenda.
Maybe the profitable paper has to carry the loss-making website.
i wouldnt have thought that the site is really all that expensive to maintain. No expert on these things but surely its just a matter of transferring the already available data and putting up a few articles? Theres very little original content as such….<br>
clivex,
I accept that the maintenance costs may be somewhat less than I imagine, but would these costs not have to include some way of writing off, over time, the site’s development costs, rather like depreciation or amortisation. Any accountants out there?
On-going maintenance cannot be amortised (im pretty sure..im a fringe accountant). But grasshopper is about right tehre i suspect
The price of anything depends upon the value you attach to it, on a personal level.
I don’t buy the RP and haven’t for a few years now, the information in it simply isnt worth the paper its written on, apart from the odd article.
The downloadable data is poorly formatted and over priced. Whats the point in trying to sell files as a .pdf? When I want to carry out further analysis with another program?
I’d put price rises at the RP in the same bracket as rigging the SP system and deliberatley running races over a different distance than the advertised one .. all done to milk the racing cash cow and fleece the general public.
I agree that operating expenses are charged to the profit and loss account, but I would have thought that development costs would be classed as capital expenditure and recovered over a number of years.
I would expect these development costs to be quite substantial if you are starting from scratch. Web designers and consultants must have been brought in at the beginning on contract and that may be ongoing.
"I’d put price rises at the RP in the same bracket as rigging the SP system and deliberatley running races over a different distance than the advertised one .. all done to milk the racing cash cow and fleece the general public."
Dave Jay – it’s true. They’re all out to get you. Look out – someone might be trying something RIGHT NOW!!!
(Edited by Lincoln Duncan at 11:23 am on Jan. 31, 2007)
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