YS vs Crash vs SU: the statistics about ZX Spectrum magazines

[PeteProdge]

First off, a look at the page numbers of the three major ZX Spectrum magazines*...


Click to enlarge

And yes, I do have the stats on the issues which had covertapes**, which are a definite factor in the reduction of pages, I'll look for a way to depict these things in a much tidier graphic at some point. This was just generated via Google Sheets.

* All cited months taken from the magazine's cover where possible (Jan 19xx usually is the 'Christmas issue'). YS = Your Spectrum/Your Sinclair.

** Not just covertapes, but badges, booklets, stickers, 3D glasses and even confectionery!

[Morkin]

Wow, that's one hell of a range...

[Daveysloan]

Really interesting graph (if a little hard to decipher). I'm astonished at how well SU did when YS & Crash are so much more fondly remembered.

I used to buy all 3 but if I was short of cash any month SU was the first to get ditched.

[Mpk]

confectionery!

Hell yeah.

Is there a gap there where YS didn't come out at the end of 1984? Is that the switch from Your Spectrum to Your Sinclair?

[PeteProdge]

Is there a gap there where YS didn't come out at the end of 1984? Is that the switch from Your Spectrum to Your Sinclair?

1984, the first year of Your Spectrum, is a bit irregular on when the magazine's published. It started off as a bi-monthly (as in 'printed every 2 months' rather than 'twice a month', I've always hated the ambiguity of that term) magazine, then announces that it's going monthly, but I've found a couple of cases where what's in the magazine doesn't properly correlate with the month, so I've made two adjustments. It's the only part of my data that I'm not 100% sure on.

Your Sinclair was the name that replaced Your Spectrum, and the first Your Sinclair came with the cover date of January 1986. They reset the issue number to 1, and gave it a 'NEW!' flash, almost as if it was a completely new magazine.

The publisher changed from SportScene Specialist Press to Dennis Publishing in 1987, but that's not a different company, just Felix Dennis renaming it, it was still legally the same entity.

[SteveSmith]

Really interesting graph (if a little hard to decipher). I'm astonished at how well SU did when YS & Crash are so much more fondly remembered.

Has anyone got actual sales figures? That would be interesting.

And a peak of ~250 pages! It must have been half an inch thick.

[PeteProdge]

Really interesting graph (if a little hard to decipher). I'm astonished at how well SU did when YS & Crash are so much more fondly remembered.

Has anyone got actual sales figures? That would be interesting.

There are ABC circulation figures cited in some issues, but not all. They tend to cover the most recent half-year, (Jan-Jun or Jul-Dec) but sometimes not updated and remain in use for a long time.

I do want to put that into the data, but it's incomplete. Also, it's quite a job digging through the magazines to find the ABC figures. At least with prices, cover date and page numbers, that's there immediately when you open the mag PDF!

It's quite interesting how SU labels itself "Best Selling Spectrum Magazine" for much of the late 80s, then there's a point where YS grabs that title (I think in their early stage of Future ownership), and splashes it on their cover, with "and about time too!". The edition of SU that month goes with "Special Spooky Issue" in place of the usual 'best-selling' boast and runs with an individual theme for a few subsequent issues, like comics, football, etc (which doesn't really make sense).

Later there is a brief period where SU makes the murky claim of being "best-selling all-Spectrum magazine", whereas YS is clearly the best seller. Maybe that "all-Spectrum" thing is some kind of qualifier? Is it do with YS covering the Sam Coupe a tiny section? It doesn't survive long, and is clearly embarrassing.

Fair enough, if you call yourself "the best Spectrum mag" when you're not the best selling, yeah, that's fair and above board, it's an opinion, but to call yourself the best-selling when you're not, that puts you on thin ice, legally.

SU was a pretty diabolical magazine in the late 80s (and ESPECIALLY the early 90s), but I do concede that now and again, their covertape eclipsed the other two mags' offerings, so that's most likely how it got to the be the best selling. They were the first to commit to a regular monthly covertape schedule.

And a peak of ~250 pages! It must have been half an inch thick.

244 pages, to be precise. Definitely a Christmas issue, way before the covertape wars. Around that time there was a Sinclair User Annual too! I think there's more than one of those. Anyway, I haven't counted the annuals in the data.

[Ralf]

If you made it as line graph and not bar graph then it would be much readable.

[p13z]

Really interesting graph (if a little hard to decipher). I'm astonished at how well SU did when YS & Crash are so much more fondly remembered.

I used to buy all 3 but if I was short of cash any month SU was the first to get ditched.

SU was around first, so presumably built and maintained a readership before the others got going. By the time the others were becoming a real threat to sales, SU went in aggressively with covertape content. SU was the only magazine I ever bought, entirely swayed by the covertapes. The others could be read while in WHSmith, or scrounged from friends

[PeteProdge]

If you made it as line graph and not bar graph then it would be much readable.

Oh, easily done!

Watch Crash, er, crash...


Click to enlarge

I am going to make a better graph, most likely in Illustrator, with the covermount freebies visually depicted. But for now, the Excel/Google Sheets generated graph is what I can easily show you.

There are more to come...

[toot_toot]

That Crash.. crash.. correlates exactly to their first "major" cover tape - Crash Presents 1, June 1989 and you could say, the start of the cover tape wars and subsequent reduction in pages.



Interesting that the price of the magazine also came down to £1.50, which included the cover tape (in a case, which might have also been a first?). So I guess something had to be reduced...

Coincidentally, it's when I started buying Crash regularly, as well as Your Sinclair (and the occasional SU, if the cover tape was good). I remember Crash Presents being a pretty big deal at the time and a definite shift to "more tape, less magazine".

[PeteProdge]

Crumbs, Crash slating the other mags' covertapes for being "often full of duff tripe"? Now that's hubris!

Interesting that the price of the magazine also came down to £1.50, which included the cover tape (in a case, which might have also been a first?)

Yep! Crash was the first with that. Very late to the party with monthly covertapes, but an actual boxed cassette was a lot more robust than the flimsy efforts from YS and SU.

Coincidentally, it's when I started buying Crash regularly, as well as Your Sinclair (and the occasional SU, if the cover tape was good). I remember Crash Presents being a pretty big deal at the time and a definite shift to "more tape, less magazine".

Yeah, a games tape with a pamphlet attached, sadly. A similar situation to children's comics/magazines at the moment where WHSmith put pressure on the publishers to always include free gifts, and thus much of the cover price is paying for the brightly coloured plastic tat shoved into the polythene bag with the comic.

Oh, and around this time there was a weird phase where Crash was printed not in A4 size, but what I believe was the American-style format which was a little wider (but shorter) than A4, so you had the usual full page ads from Ocean and US Gold with white margins at the side.

I'll be covering the value-for-money angle with page totals, tomorrow.

[Lee Bee]

Ha ha, I remember when Crash became so thin it was just a front and back cover

Crash seems to be the most fondly-remembered magazine overall, but YS was by far my favourite! I liked the style and tone the most.

[Pobulous]

It would be interesting to know how many pages had actual content rather than adverts - I remember some of the weightier tomes being quite thin on things to actually read.

[Daveysloan]

Really interesting graph (if a little hard to decipher). I'm astonished at how well SU did when YS & Crash are so much more fondly remembered.

Has anyone got actual sales figures? That would be interesting.

And a peak of ~250 pages! It must have been half an inch thick.

I completely misread that graph & thought it WAS sales figures!!

Still, it is a very interesting graph. For example it shows that the page count in Crash did creep up a bit after the initial covertape/pamphlet issue.

[Mpk]

Watch Crash, er, crash...

They weren't wrong!

[SteveSmith]

It would be interesting to know how many pages had actual content rather than adverts - I remember some of the weightier tomes being quite thin on things to actually read.

I did have a quick browse of the big issue of SU, and er, it does seem to have more than its fair share of adverts...

https://worldofspectrum.org/archive/mag ... /1984/12/0

[PeteProdge]

t would be interesting to know how many pages had actual content rather than adverts - I remember some of the weightier tomes being quite thin on things to actually read.

That would mean manually checking tens of thousands of pages. 34,278 of them to be precise! And then you have the half-page and quarter page stuff and the ones that don't even fit into that...

You raise a fair point. The ads-to-editorial ratio is important, no point having a magazine heavily stuffed with adverts. However, the flipside is that adverts do actually provide revenue, and thus the opportunity for more content. The depleted Crash could have had more pages if their ad sales team were up to it. It's a bit of a trade-off, I admit.

They weren't wrong!

Heh, I saw a lot of toe-curling 'coolspeak' last night from Crash's late 80s/early 90s phase. Everything was 'rad', 'mega', 'skill', etc.

I completely misread that graph & thought it WAS sales figures!!

GB News ratings, maybe!

[PeteProdge]

Incidentally, the total amount of pages over the lifetime of these magazines:
SU: 13,786
Crash: 10,640
Your Spectrum + Your Sinclair: 10,302

Which means the average amount of pages per issue is:
SU: 104
Crash: 109
Your Spectrum + Your Sinclair: 90

I didn't expect that outcome!

[Lee Bee]

Regarding adverts, while no one wants a magazine with a low content-to-advert ratio, I would argue that advert pages aren't worthless, and do have some value to readers. They can be interesting, attractive, informative, exciting, and give you a feel of what's going on. There were some games I was so excited about, I'd cut out the adverts and stick them on my bedroom wall.

Plus, the overall experience of flipping through the pages of a magazine can actually be enhanced by a modest proportion of fun and interesting adverts - perhaps like vegetables in a meal, not the star attraction, but to serve as filling.

And I say this as a man who hasn't watched TV adverts in nearly 20 years because I find modern advertising so insufferably manipulative!

[p13z]

Regarding adverts, while no one wants a magazine with a low content-to-advert ratio, I would argue that advert pages aren't worthless, and do have some value to readers. They can be interesting, attractive, informative, exciting, and give you a feel of what's going on. There were some games I was so excited about, I'd cut out the adverts and stick them on my bedroom wall.

In fact - some of the "mail order" adverts back then were a total lifeline in pre-WWW shopping days.
Comprehensive lists of software, especially utilities and amateur / fanzine stuff (and PD archives in the earlier 16bit mags - pre BBS).
All the hardware and software available at keen prices, not just whatever your local shops had in, at the prices they felt like charging.

[ZXDunny]

I found that when Crash! was at its peak, it was stunning to read, with incredibly high production values - just compare Crash! and YS/YSp cover art for example. But as Crash! declined, YS maintain a similar level of quality throughout its run which although never as high as Crash! reached, it never went as low either.

Though to be fair, I don't think I can recall any magazine that sank to Crash!'s later depths. I also vastly preferred Your Spectrum to Your Sinclair too

[PeteProdge]

Though to be fair, I don't think I can recall any magazine that sank to Crash!'s later depths.

Pick any SU starting from 1991.

[SteveSmith]

Though to be fair, I don't think I can recall any magazine that sank to Crash!'s later depths.

Pick any SU starting from 1991.

Is that when they incorporated Crash?

[PeteProdge]

Pick any SU starting from 1991.

Is that when they incorporated Crash?

Heh, the logo on the cover and pretty much nothing else!

No, it's roughly the start of Garth Sumpter's era, which was really painful. Actually, it was really poor before that, but Garth really accelerated the decline.

There's no single point where Sinclair User went from interesting to trash, it was a gradual collapse in standards. A bit like The Simpsons in that respect.