So why The Sportsman? Here we must enter a world that is increasingly populous, yet a mystery to those of us who have never penetrated it - the world of the online punter. We read of online poker companies being floated to produce mind-boggling market valuations. We examine websites such as SportingOdds , SportingLife and SportingIndex and we suddenly realise you can bet on any sport online, not to mention poker and blackjack.Is this sad? I think so. The idea of the lone poker player in front of his screen trying to read the inscrutable face of the opponent he cannot see is tragic. They are familiar with betting terminology; they know their accumulators from their trebles, their each-ways from their Yankees. Most of the names associated with the proposed launch of The Sportsman are .. well, sportsmen. But how many of those stick around for the (rare) weeks when there are no giveaways?"You only retain the new readers if your base sale is rising anyway.
If you are going down, you get a temporary spike that day and then go back to your downward trend," claimed one circulation manager True or not, the DVD is here to stay For now. The executive added: "We are no different from the monthly magazine market now. If you go to WH Smith's and look at the women's mags, you'll see sarongs, silk scarves, sunglasses and flip-flops on their covers Everyone's at it We just started a bit later than they did.". You would have to be a gambling man to consider launching a new daily newspaper in times like these.
As we see again today with the publication of the latest circulation figures, it is hard to maintain sales, let alone increase them, so why would anyone join battle now? They would surely have to have a mindset that embraced large binoculars and checked sports jackets, or find contentment gazing at the green baize As it happens they do. It is estimated that recent DVD giveaways at the group have put on between 7 and 16 per cent of sales. Where once a newspaper could pick up the rights to a film for £50,000, now it might find itself being asked for five times that amount - "and that can be even for a reasonably indifferent movie."But is a free DVD a wise investment? It is estimated by rivals that the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday between them spend around £80m annually on their promotions, of which DVDs (and to a lesser extent CDs) claim a large chunk. A DVD is more costly: around 30p per disc - a scarily high proportion of a Saturday or Sunday paper's £1-or-so cover price."The cost of pressing a DVD is coming down rapidly. But the film industry is not stupid - and the cost of licensing is going through the roof," said an executive in a position to know.
