there is a saying - "don't cross sword with the media", meaning don't "play play" with the media cos they can do great damage to you and your products.
there used to be a time when hifi was well-covered by the english media. i am talking about at least 7-8 years ago. we had perfect pitch (sun newspaper) and audiofile (the star newspaper) competing neck to neck in a fun and healthy manner. perfect pitch was technical and serious whereas audiofile was fun and a bit frivolous. audiophiles then had a field day reading both publications. slowly we witnessed the demise of both in the late 90s/early 2000. well, audiofile did not really die but they changed direction. recently, i heard rumours that audiofile intends to focus on hifi again. that is heartening.
being in the media myself, i see a great responsibility in "resuscitating" this industry that has declined substantially compared to the heydays of the mid-90s. hifi magazines in HK, taiwan are so influential that they can make or break a product. HK mags, in particular, are very good in sensationalizing products, which is a good thing if you ask me, never mind that a lot of them are cheer-leading literature.
i am a newbie in publishing. i am good in listening, biasing my tubes, positioning speakers but i really am new in managing a magazine. all i know is i can't do a TAS or stereophile equivalent in malaysia, not that i am capable of it in the first place. i don't think there is a place for a "hardcore" hifi magazines anymore. those days are long gone. on the other hand, i don't know what the mass readers want today. (note: the keyword here is "mass". TAS and stereophile are not mass).
i am slowing climbing the rope to see what malaysian readers want. i will keep changing and reshaping until i find something palatable and acceptable to the malaysian readers. in fact, this issue of av xpress is a great leap forward in terms of contents and positioning.
i am hoping that one day - in the not-to-distant future - people will regard av xpress as the "audio vox" of malaysian hifi.
it is still a long, long way but do not underestimate the power of media.
infrequent updates
7 years ago
2 comments:
That will not be any light in Malaysia HIFI as long as the price still in the higher side. Not to mention the hardware, even software part, our CDs price is the most expensive in the region. So nowadays people just download APE, yeap not mp3 which claim to be as good as CD and we have almost unlimited resources on this include most of the titles audiophile embrace.
So investment/finance magazines are more practical.
hi,
while i agree with you in broad terms, but i feel that it is not as bleak as one would see. as i have said, we still have 20 years before the current batch of "spending" audiophiles will completely lose their hearing! haha.
anyway, as i have written in our blog intro - "our passion knows no bounds". if passionate people like us with media skills and audio knowledge don't play our part to save the industry from futher decline, who will?
so, instead of accusing the manufacturers and dealers, we take a more positive step in playing our part. of course, we have our bills to pay. as long as we are not losing money, it will remain a worthwhile project.
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