Distribution of material between magazine and website

Well, I check out BBC Music mag and Gramophone Fora on my way to the Linn site and find nothing going on until wigmaker's provocative jibe sparks  some life.  And this should help too: 

Not being one to pass up a challenge, I will say that I find the magazine the opposite of a rip-off and particularly enjoy the audio section.  I probably fall into wigmaker's "more money than sense" demographic having made serious investments in equipment that delivers music that in a very real sense gives me the impression of being in the presence of its source - an illusion, but a startlingly thrilling and moving one in each and every listening session.  And I listen a lot.  I call that value for money.

A couple of weeks ago I attended a factory visit just outside of Glasgow to a well known British hi-fi company to see its production processes and to take part in a Q&A session around a certain record deck that first saw the light in 1972 and is still considered one of the best in the world.  Now I know why.

No one could see the skill, dedication and enthusiasm at each single-station assembly point, the care that goes into quality control procedures at every stage, the pride on display by all concerned, and not share my perception that investment in such products is worth every single penny.

Visitors were treated to a performance by one of the company's recording artists and her support, and what impressed me particularly was that almost the whole workforce (of 130 or so) were there to share the experience: the love of music seems to pervade the place.  It seemed a model of what British manufacturing should be and I am proud and lucky to own some of its products.

Thanks Wigmaker for prompting me to contribute to this discussion.

Vic. 

Dear Vic

I'm glad that I've livened things up a bit for you - I hope this one will live up to the previous.

Did you notice that Andrew Everard has gone right off me? (What did he mean, "not entirely unexpected response"? I didn't think I posted here often enough to have a bad name.) I think he thinks of me as one of those rough kids from the council estate that lowers the tone in any room he stands in.

Well, I suppose I am from one of those estates, as it happens, which is why I find his audio equipment often obscenely priced. I'm all for supporting good old-fashioned British manufacturing, and I suppose if you can't think of anything better to do with your stacks of cash - I'm fairly confident that all those Gramophone readers who think nothing of treating themselves to a £2000 pair of speakers regularly give generous amounts to charities, the homeless etc - you might as well support companies like the one you describe.

Dstrickland: it's not the ads in themselves I was objecting to - I look at them too when I'm reading the magazine (in a library) - but the fact that the mag buyer is paying for the dubious privilege of looking at someone else's advertising (which those companies have already paid Gramophone for!). There would be no TV licence if the BBC went, so we're told, because other stations' ads would pay their own costs. So why should magazines be any different?

Andrew Everard (look away now, sir) has already noted that I have a shaky grasp of economic reality, but I can in fact read, and I know that the company that owns Gramophone, Haymarket, is a private company, owned by unreconstructed Tory grandees. In other words, it spends its money without public accountability. And thus in the 60s Haymarket made Heseltine a millionaire, and his reckless spending after he quit politics has, IMHO, a lot to do with the high cover price of Gramophone.

On the other hand, I'm obviously in a small minority here. Just another way of looking at things for editors' amusement and readers' excitement.

Wigmaker,

I've never detected anything in Andrew's postings - or his personality, as someone who knows him as a colleague - that indicate any such class prejudice. I would ask you to desist from such unfounded accusations.

I won't even attempt to fathom either what you mean by 'unreconstructed Tory grandee' or what relevance it has to this conversation. Haymarket is a business, of course, but all businesses want to grow through investing well in their products, and I think you would be rather surprised at the amount of investment Haymarket has put into Gramophone's continued development (not least the archive and website, which are both free) in recent years. 

Martin

Yes, one does, doesn't one.

? What's wrong with lambasting personal choice? Anything people choose to do can't be criticised??

Oh, I agree. Nothing to do with Thatcherism or privatisation, of course.

Shock, horror. Not in my day, etc.

There's no more corruption in the banking system than there is in big business in general. Blame the banks = easy, because then you don't have to blame the economic system itself. Whose money is it in the banks paying all those greedy bankers? Yours, mine, Tesco's, Shell's, Npower's, the Council's,  all those businesses & services we buy stuff from every day. Who looks after it all for us? The greedy bankers. Hm.

As for 'free competition', if you think it really exists, no offence, but you've been reading too many right wing newspapers.

To tell the truth, Vic, I've never found classical music fans to have the keenest sense of humour.