The Angling Times is ditching its newspaper format after 63 years and is being revamped as a glossy magazine after carping from readers that the old format was proving too unwieldy to read on the river bank.
The first issue of Bauer Media-owned weekly title published as a glossy magazine will be out next week with pagination increasing from 64 to 84 pages.
The increase in pagination will be a mix of more advertising and editorial content.
Editor Steve Fitzpatrick said: “We have spent the last eight months just talking to our readers about producing a new Angling Times. One of the things that come out was being able to read it on the bank. It’s quite a big step as it has been a newspaper since 1953.”
Fitzpatrick described the old format as a “big old newspaper” and said that readers preferred leafing through the smaller, more “portable” magazine format while fishing on the river bank.
It is moving from a tabloid-size to A4 and according to Bauer Media, 84 percent of the title’s readers surveyed said they preferred the new format.
The change comes as the Angling Times fights a falling circulation.
According to the latest ABCs figures, its circulation fell 11.8 percent to 26,488 copies in the last six months of 2015.
Moving to the magazine format will mean the title will be sold in retailers next to other glossy magazine fishing titles and not removed from them because of its newspaper status.
Fitzpatrick, himself a keen angler who has edited the title for the past four years. said: “We will be in the category of other magazines. I think we will see changes quite quickly. I think gains will come quickly.”
The Angling Times will still be priced at £1.99 and the change in format will be accompanied by a number of new columnists.
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