At 11:55 AM 5/6/02 -0400, ralph diaz wrote: > >There is a rule of thumb used in the publishing world. Basically you expect >that a mature publication is doing its job if it is reaching about 10 per >cent of its targeted audience or market. This formula doesn't always work >but it certainly gives you something to wrap your hands on. > >So a mature magazine like C&K has an audited circulation in the >50,000-60,000 range (it is the only paddling magazine that is ABC audited, >i.e. really audited and not with figures that include funny things). So, it >is probably safe to say that there are 500,000 paddlers out there of the WW, >canoe, SK variety. Feels like a comfortable figure to me. Certianly a lot better than 24.8 million, and comfortably in the ball yard of my guess of 250,000. Granted, much depends on how you define what the "paddling community" is. Overlooking the Foxworthy cracks, I suppose you could define a threshold number of times that a person gets out per year, say, five. Where you draw the line is obviously going to change the figure considerably. >To narrow down the latter look at Sea Kayaker's >circulation. Its circulation is not audited but just declared for purposes >of a break in postage (they need to put a statement as do all the magazines >indicating ownership, issues sold, freebies, etc. and this appears in an >issue in the Fall, usually in the tiniest of prints in some back page). If >I recall correctly, the latest last Fall was in the 26,000 range. But you >may want to doctor that down a bit because it is not audited, say to 20,000. >Multiply by 10 and you get around 200,000 sea kayakers. I suspect that figure is high. Again, how do you define a sea kayaker? My gut feeling is that SK probably does a little better at market penetration than more generalist magazines -- you floated the figure of 2 out of 10 in your other post. That would cut the number of sea kayakers in half. Secondly, if you assume the total number of active paddlers to be 500,000, well, that has to include canoes of many persuasions, fisherpeople, whitewater kayaks, rec boats, etc. Again, gut feeling, but I'd be willing to bet that well less than 1 in 10 active paddlers can be termed sea kayakers. > >The 24.8 million figure for paddlers is a pipe dream. Absolutely. In your other post you said that there has to be a figure between 25,000 and 25 million that's pretty close to the truth. I'd narrow that bracket considerably -- to, say, somewhere between 250,000 and 2.5 million. And I'd still bet the lower end of that range. -- Wes --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wes Boyd's Kayak Place http://www2.dmci.net/wesboyd/kayak.htm Kayaks for Big Guys (And Gals) | Trip Reports | Places To Go | Boats & Gear --------------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon May 06 2002 - 10:24:32 PDT
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