Spot the obvious mistake!!!

Cantoris said:
I played golf recently with a lad who is closely involved in RP. He was asking me why I didn't buy the Post as he knows I'm a keen racing person. I gave him my views and would be interested in yours so I can pass it onto him. They done some market research recently and got a good response from post readers but in a hope to try and improve it, let me know what you think and I will send him link to the site.
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I filled in the customer questionnaire but then forgot to send it off.

The paper is unaffordable. I just don't see how any individual on average income can pay for it every day.

I only buy it on Saturdays and for festival meetings, although I'm cutting down on that, buying only when I'm on holiday. Being able to print off the card from the website helps me but if they decided to charge I'd simply get my cheap local evening paper as it prints the big cards anyway.

Even when I do buy the paper, I don't actually read it until after I've done the form for myself via the Form Book. I simply check out the Spotlight comments for those on my short lists to confirm which might be ruled out on account of going etc.

The tipping pages are a waste of space. The Pricewise tables are useful but the ones you get online at oddschecker are more comprehensive. The trainers' comments in advance of big races tend to be meaningless non-committal or misleading. I gave up reading gallop columnists years ago.

On Saturdays, I tend to bin the Sports Section straight away - at least it's a pullout, which makes that bit easy. Same with the recent entries section; what is the point of that? I think there's a case for reducing the price of the paper considerably and selling the Sports Section separately.

I'd do the same with the Greyhounds - a separate paper sold separately.

But for me the bottom line is price. I don't follow racing every day anyway so I'd be lying if I said I'd buy it every day if it were the same price as a red-top (which I don't buy either) but £1.60 is a hefty price for a paper.

I'm thinking of giving up on it altogether since the more I get round to throwing it out on a Sunday morning, the more I realise I haven't really looked at it.
 
Desert Orchid said:
I filled in the customer questionnaire but then forgot to send it off.

The paper is unaffordable. I just don't see how any individual on average income can pay for it every day.

I'm thinking of giving up on it altogether since the more I get round to throwing it out on a Sunday morning, the more I realise I haven't really looked at it.
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I agree totally! And when I am racing I see so many people at the parade ring with a folded up page from the dailies that I think we are not the only ones who think the price is far too high.
 
................DO, I don't think the Post is produced solely for the benefit of punters.

If you read one of the earlier posts, Barrington Hills was quite put out with them for not publishing entries on the correct day.
 
Grey said:
Until comparatively recently the Irish Field hadn't changed in at least 30 years and had become moribund. It is far better than it used to be, even if the editor thinks his job is to be a cheerleader.
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Point taken. I certainly wouldn't have been around to read it 30 years ago!

Perhaps my disenchantment with their refusal to tackle a few key issues (very much willful ignorance IMO) has skewed my view of the paper as a whole.
 
trackside528 said:
As for the Irish Field, I personally think it too has has declined considerably in the last five years or so (admittedly I've only read it that long). However, I admit I still check it out every week for the reports/ features. The persistent refusal to adress many of the most serious, yet perhaps awkward, issues facing the industry is little short of pathetic. I should add that having spoken to a few of the staff, I certainly wouldn't put the blame on them.
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Well they once criticised Coolmore and lost all their advertising. From a business perspective, there is a fine line. Each of those ads is prob a few grand and they take a couple each week.
 
mrussell said:
I don't buy it because there's not enough by way of news. Plenty of tipping & quotes, too light on news journalism. .
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Have to agree with that. I much prefer their weekly Racing & Football Outlook. There is a number of soccer/racing betting articles which are always worth reading. I always find I've the Post read in 5 mins. The Sportman had some excellent sports features while it lasted. The best sports writer for the Post now is the ex-Sportsman Ed Hawkins. I'm not a massive cricket fan but always find myself reading his pieces. The post needs more of that. The golf feature on a Tuesday is useless. Its basically Steve Palmer writing a load of bollocks about this price being far too big or far too short and then a copy and paste from the World ranking site.
 
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The Racing Post does not hold back in that regard, Tony Morris has ripped certain stallions/practices apart. The editor of the Irish Field sums the place up....
 
Galileo said:
The Racing Post does not hold back in that regard, Tony Morris has ripped certain stallions/practices apart. The editor of the Irish Field sums the place up....
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But RP is not dependent on Coolmore for a good portion of their advertising. They can afford to let Morris tell the truth every now and again.
 
Gareth Flynn said:
If you see Mr Dench again, can you ask him to pass a word on to Mr Millington? The word is 'staples'.
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Am I going to get a smack in the face for that?! Or do you just mean you want staples in the paper?! :D

I used to buy the RP on a daily basis. Now if I don't get anywhere that sells one of a day I'm not really bothered, tbh. That's mainly because, much like Gearoid, I find that it can keep me occupied for roughly 5 minutes before I've exhausted useful and interesting information. I sitll buy it probably 5 days a week though.

I have no idea whether or not it is coincidence that it seems to marry with the advent of Millington as editor, someone who doesn't seem to be all that bothered with racing.
 
The RP has a 'Race Reader' at all meetings I think - as does the PA - but their brief is quite limited - that's the guys who compile the 'in running' comments.

It doesn't have a reporter as such at most smaller meetings, hence the variable reporting. I guess most of what's written is done in the office watching monitors. They might even take a lot of their stuff from the PA. At some smaller courses and meetings the lack of journalistic presence in the newsroom is striking - and a bit shocking!
 
The RP has a race reader and a reporter at every meeting, HS. The PA also has a race reader. Occasionally (but not often) the race reader will work off screens from home.

Latest rumour surrounding them - and this is straight from the horse's mouth - is that the inevitable charging for the RP online is imminent.
 
Shadow Leader said:
Latest rumour surrounding them - and this is straight from the horse's mouth - is that the inevitable charging for the RP online is imminent.
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I've been waiting for that to happen ever since it was sold. The ominous wording when they opened the "My Notes" area was "... this is currently a free service."

Oh well, back to pen and paper, then.
 
I'm doing sme research for an author and went to look under 'clipping's on the RP online and there is a fault, page unavailable. It's been like that for many days now, I wonder if that part has been taken offline until we have to pay for it? Might be the beginning of the having less free info.
 
Possibly, although it's been up and down before. There's swathes of time missing in it too - the work experience lacky must have been sick!
 
Shadow Leader said:
The RP has a race reader and a reporter at every meeting, HS. The PA also has a race reader. Occasionally (but not often) the race reader will work off screens from home.

Latest rumour surrounding them - and this is straight from the horse's mouth - is that the inevitable charging for the RP online is imminent.
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Yes, I know the two regular race-readers - RP and PA - quite well by now!! But I've not been aware of the RP having a journalist at *every* meeting..... and considering I'm usually in the Winners Enc when working you'd think I'd have noticed them!! They should have a reporter of course... I'll pay more attention

Very depressing that the RP is going to start charging, some of us don't earn very much or very regularly!
 
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so, you know the two (!!) regular race readers well, do you? which 2 of the many employed would those be? I answered your post since you did not seem to know yourself as 1) you qualified your comment on race readers with ....I think..... and 2) you inaccurately said the RP does not send reporters to all race meetings. You would not want people to be misled I am sure.
 
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