End of an Era? Pat McManus to leave Outdoor Life

Like you Phillip I will also miss Mr. McManus, He is an iconic figure but, I have to address something which I have said for awhile now and that is the fact that these changes are the only way to insure the company’s survival.

There is a whole new market out there to be explored and the usual way of doing business is costing too much money.
High salaries and monetary perks, coupled with insurance costs plus retirement for these long term employees are starting to take its toll. And in a global market, in order to stay competitive these company’s must approach sales with new strategies.

I know for myself that I love Boar Hunter Magazine but, If I spent money advertising in that magazine I would not be gaining any new customers.
And also, any thing which I had to say by way of submitting articles to them would be simply Preaching To The Choir!

So, I must choose alternatives which will reach a new and fresh market altogether and a few examples would be: Women Hunters, New To The Sport, Hunters, Wildlife Tours And Bird Watching, Corporate Retreat Offerings and many more!
These such things which the Hunting Industry has overlooked for so long a time now, I believe that what I am speaking about is one of the primary reasons for the decline in hunter numbers as well.

I will sorely miss those old faces with which I grew up with but, the Business Of Hunting needs some New Faces and new stratagy’s if it wants to continue staying in: The Hunting Business!

For years I kept my subscription to OL for one reason – to read my fellow Idahoans humor. I am not in any way putting down other outdoor humor writers, but there never has been and never will be anyone that can do humor the way Pat did it – he will always be the best, and I’m sad to see him go.

Now here’s my two cents on the print conversation: I don’t know much about it, but it seems to me that in re-structuring you have to try not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The purpose of it is to reposition yourself to make money in the future, while trying to also save money now. If OL tosses a guy that brings in readers, especially their base of readers, then they have made a strategic error.

If they now try to go ‘young & hip’, then they’ll really be blundering!

A large amount of people seriously resisted the compact disk encroachment upon their vinyl world.
We all know what eventually happened with that particular resistance and now, 28 years later, vinyl has made a bit of a comeback in the form of specialty/novelty and nostalgic circles and also carrying with this renewed interest, a hefty price tag for those who wish to purchase vinyl recordings.

I do believe that the same thing will happen with our printed media Phillip!

It will eventually balance out though with the people who still like to touch and feel:
(like the old open up albums were, Remember Alice Coopers “Schools Out” album complete with a pair of paper panties wrapped around the vinyl record or Led Zeppelin 3 with the color picture wheel?)
against the people who like to just turn on their computer or surf with their blackberry to learn of the latest news or to read an article.

But unfortunately, we will see a point where a lot of printed media will cease to exist and in its place will be digitized versions of our beloved magazines.

As someone who grew up reading him, I too will greatly miss Pat. And I think they are making a huge mistake by letting him go.
Generic outdoor writings are out these days due to the net, so to let go of one of their unique magazine features just doesn’t make sense. I give them one more year in business.

There has only been one time that I’ve written to a magazine and it was to complain when OL moved The Last Laugh off of the last page into the middle of the magazine somewhere. I was really glad when they moved it back.

I would be happy for Mr. McManus and much more willing to accept the loss of his column if he was just retiring. Cutting it as a cost saving measure makes me wonder if they realize the loss to the quality of the magazine it will bring.

I seldom leave responses, however I read a bunch of remarks on this page 301 Moved Permanently. I actually do have 2 questions for you if you tend not to mind. Is it simply me or does it appear like some of the comments appear as if they are written by brain dead folks? And, if you are writing on additional social sites, I’d like to follow you. Would you post a list of the complete urls of all your social sites like your twitter feed, Facebook page or linkedin profile?