by The Editors on November 18, 2010
A shockingly well-done version of the cover of Sports Illustrated has been making the rounds today. It features Kelly Slater winning his Perfect 10 in Puerto Rico with the words “The World’s Most Dominant Surfer and The Amazing Story of Why it Took So Long To Feature Him On Our Cover.”
And there is more: the issue also reportedly features a story on Andy Irons titled “Farewell To A Legend,” a piece on the History of Surfing “from Duke to Kalohe,” and a story on the women of surfing and “why they rock.”
At first glance, through surf jaded eyes, it almost looks real—especially for those who still read print. But with a closer look it becomes obvious that even Sports Illustrated would never run an “Ultimate Surfing Issue” because the truth is, the jocks just don’t care.
by The Editors on November 12, 2010
Keiko Beatie is bringing his surf film festival to the North Shore of Oahu with the North Shore Surf Film Festival at the Mokuleia Polo Field December 3-5, 2010.
On Friday Opening Night the Festival begins with the North Shore Premieres of Scratching the Surface, staring Julian Wilson the Australian surfer they say is destined to be the next Kelly Slater. Directed by Matt Beauchesne and produced by the Iron Brothers this film just won Best Surf Film at the California Surf Festival recently. Who Is JOB? Jamie and Mick O’Brien will be on hand to say a few words about this meaningful project.
For all the other details including by info on a Titus Kinimaka and the Kauai Boys performance follow the jump. [click to continue…]
by The Editors on November 2, 2010
On November 16, 2010 Monterey Media will be releasing The Ultimate Summer collection of Bruce Brown’s classic surf films on DVD. The 5-DVD boxed set includes: Waterlogged, Surfing Hollow Days, Slippery When Wet, Surfin’ Shorts, Surf Crazy, Barefoot Adventure, a digitally remaster version of The Endless Summer, and The Endless Summer II. And it only costs $53.99.
What better way to work on retro fashion and style than by catching all the originals in a way they’ve never been seen before. Old crusty surfers will love this.
Click here to pre-order it. Or follow the jump for the complete rundown on each of the classic films.
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by The Editors on October 28, 2010
According to a report released by the Magazine Publishers of America magazine advertising pages during the third quarter (July to September 2010) were up 3.6 percent over the same period last year. The biggest gains were in the retail category where pages were up 7.2 percent and revenue was up 13.1 percent.
As we do most quarters we’ve checked in with the only action sports magazines followed in the Publisher Information Bureau (Bonnier Corporation’s Transworld Media) and see that things are mostly looking up. In fact Q3 looked great for all the titles aside from Skateboarding and Wakeboarding:
2010 2009 % Change
TRANSWORLD SNOWBOARDING 221.34 173.67 27.45
TRANSWORLD MOTOCROSS 256.26 220.08 16.44
TRANSWORLD SURF 278.42 244.34 13.95
RIDE BMX 152.59 148.36 2.85
TRANSWORLD SKATEBOARDING 296.04 337.05 -12.17
WAKEBOARDING 93.67 116.83 -19.82
Maybe those iPad magazine apps were just digital overkill. To see how the rest of the magazine world stacked up click here.
[Link: Magazine Publisher of America]
by The Editors on October 20, 2010
Sean Aruda, 44, the CEO of the action sports website Go211.com, died Tuesday, October 19, 2010, according to a story on the Patriot Ledger.
Sean M. Aruda, a basketball coach at Notre Dame Academy in Hingham, died Tuesday of a sudden illness. . . He is survived by his wife, Patricia, and four daughters, including his youngest child who is a sophomore at Notre Dame Academy.
On September 9, 2010, Aruda, 44, sold Go211.com to Metacafe where he became chief revenue officer. According to sources Aruda had a meeting scheduled with former Go211.com investors on Tuesday and he never arrived.
According to his obituary, published October 21, 2010 in the Patriot Ledger, Aruda died “unexpectedly in his home” in Hanover, Massachusetts. Our thoughts are with Aruda’s family and friends.
[Link: Patriot Leger]
by The Editors on October 6, 2010
Transworld Media launched a new application for the Apple iPad today called TransWorld Snowboarding+. We’re not exactly how it is different from the digital magazine subscriptions Transworld sells on the Zinio platform, but it reportedly includes the following:
. . . a totally re-designed and enhanced version of the content from the mag that’s fully interactive. The image display is super vivid, its got exclusive embedded video, and the content flows like you’ve never seen in print. Navigation is simple, urging you to dig deeper into every issue. . . Swipe left and right to move among stories. Swipe down to read more. Jump between sections by swiping with two fingers, or through the pop-up Contents panel—just push up with two fingers at the bottom of the screen to access Contents and Issues. Tap the screen to make the text disappear and focus solely on the big, beautiful images. Tap it again to bring the text back.
The iPad is still too big and heavy for out tastes and you know what we think about magazine apps, but if there’s an iPad at your house, be sure to load this up and let us know how it looks. Issues are only $2.99 a piece, or nearly four times the price of a Zinio subscription to the same mag.
[Link: iTunes Store]
by The Editors on October 6, 2010
Source Interlink Media, the parent company of ASG (publishers of Surfing, Surfer, Snowboarder, and Skateboarder magazines) announced today that they have purchased Grind Networks including GrindTV.com, Newschoolers.com, Ridemonkey.com, 411vm.com, Wetsand.com, affiliate sales aggregation sites Snowboarder.com, Motocross.com, Skateboard.com, and entertainment site Stupidvideos.com.
“The addition of Grind Networks to our portfolio demonstrates our corporate strategic commitment to finding and investing in the right partners who have the vision to deliver targeted content, across multiple platforms, to our enthusiast consumers,” said Michael L. Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer of Source Interlink Companies, Inc. . . With this move, former Grind Networks CEO Erik Hawkins will oversee all digital sales and marketing efforts for the new group; President/COO Greg Morrow will direct all technical and digital product development aspects of the business. The two founded Grind Networks in 2005 after serving as executives at Yahoo!, CitySearch and Launch Media. Both will report directly to Norb Garrett, Senior Vice President and Group Publisher of SIM’s ASG.
Those who follow along will remember that many of these websites were purchased and/or created by Wasserman Media Group in something called Sportnet. That site was WMG’s last attempt to corner the market on digital action sports. When things turned out poorly there the sites were then rolled into GrindTV with money from Softbank Capital March 19, 2009.
It will be interesting to see what magic ASG’s Norb Garrett can work with these sites as none (aside from Newschoolers in ski and Ridemonkey in MTB) have yet to have gained any authentic traction with either advertisers or readers. And while the domains snowboarder.com, motocross.com, and skateboard.com obviously have potential, this whole deal seems like a rather complicated, expensive way to upgrade a couple URLs.
Follow the jump for the rest of the release.
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by The Editors on September 28, 2010
Seems the Bonnier Corporation (overlords of Transworld Media) is switching up nearly everything this month.
Bonnier management canned the editorial director at the Parenting Group, moved their Garden Design magazine offices to New York City, rebranded Wakeboarding as Transworld Wakeboarding magazine, and more importantly, eliminated three positions in the Carlsbad, California offices including the publisher of Transworld Skateboarding magazine, a job held by 11-year Transworld veteran Jamey Stone. Transworld Group Publisher Liam Ferguson explains:
TransWorld Media recently made a very small reduction in its workforce in an effort to cut costs, offset expenses and strategically plan for future initiatives that are currently in line for the company,” Ferguson said in an email. “In order to ensure the ongoing success of TransWorld Media, these tough decisions with our TransWorld Family were made so we can continue to provide an exceptional level of service to our audience, advertisers, and existing employees.”
Hard times, hard decisions. Jamey’s deep knowledge of skateboarding and dedication to authenticity is reportedly already being missed at the company. And, as most media companies are being forced to adjust staff sizes to meet new economies realities, the question many have is who will be next?
by The Editors on September 26, 2010
Bobby “Shaggy” Crawford, 38, a mailroom worker in the New York City offices of the Heart Corporation, has apparently been writing letters to skateboard magazines (and other publications) for 15 years, according to a story in the New York Times. Now, thanks to all his hard work, the paper of record is giving him a little media play of his own in the form of a profile.
Mr. Crawford has been delivering mail at the Hearst Corporation for 13 years, regaling everyone from interns to executives with tales of his skateboarding escapades. But what most of the writers, editors and arbiters to whom he delivers letters and packages do not realize is that he has been published in more magazines than many of them. . . More than 100 of his letters have been printed in their pages.
Slap’s Mark Whiteley says the guy sticks at it. “Shaggy was relentless. He’d send letters every month. Sometimes they were terrible, sometimes they were pointless, sometimes they were just too harsh to print. But a lot of the time they were hilarious.”
Shaggy is definitely a dying breed. While most other cranks have started their own blogs, it appears that Shaggy is going to keep writing until there are no more letters sections left to fill. Which shouldn’t be all that long.
[Link: New York Times]
by The Editors on September 20, 2010
We knew when Fuel TV’s Australian mates started including mixed martial arts in their “action sports” content mix in December of 2008, that it was only a matter of time before the American Fuel TV began rationalizing why it was the perfect fit for their audience. And when Ken Block’s Gymkanna 3, Part 2 became the most watched video on Youtube.com last week (with 6.5 million views), it’s almost a no-brainer if young male eyeballs is all Fuel is after.
That’s why we were not surprised to learn that beginning today (September 20, 2010) Fuel.TV will be adding MMA and rally racing to their growing mix of board and motor sports, according to a CJ Olivares interview on Transworld Business. Olivares explains:
We took all of the six core sports and asked ‘what are the things that they share? Who are the participants? What attracts the aspirants to them?’ And we came up of a list of like 10-12 concepts, if you will, that we believe define the audience. . . Things like freedom and defiance, individuality, independence, courage, confidence, innovation, aggression, exploration, and humor. And one that we really keyed in on was risk. Risk became a really central concept in conjunction with the others, because we started to look at the total landscape of sports that are out there. . . . The two that really jump out immediately are MMA and rally car. . . . There’s an opportunity there for us to look at those two sports—and other things—it’s a constant exploration for us to identify: what are those other things? We’re about this new generation of sports where risk is the only rule.
In other words, the business realities of cable television require Fuel.TV to air shows that people want to watch and as we’ve said repeatedly, the mainstream doesn’t really care about action sports. But two sweaty, muscled, nearly-nude men locked in a cage grunting, punching, and hugging each other into kama sutra like poses or dudes driving ridiculously over-powered small cars recklessly; who doesn’t want to watch that?
[Link: Transworld Business]
Follow the jump for the official press release. . .
[click to continue…]
A shockingly well-done version of the cover of Sports Illustrated has been making the rounds today. It features Kelly Slater winning his Perfect 10 in Puerto Rico with the words “The World’s Most Dominant Surfer and The Amazing Story of Why it Took So Long To Feature Him On Our Cover.”
