It hasn’t been a huge secret that MotorTrend, the popular magazine and website, was in the process of being offloaded. Who would buy such a publication? It turns out the answer is Hearst Magazines, the same company that owns Car And Driver, Road & Track, Autoweek, and BringATrailer. As MotorTrend also owns the zombie Automobile magazine and Hot Rod, this means that one company will own all of America’s traditional buff books.
The announcement was made today that MotorTrend Group, which more recently was part of Warner Bros. Discovery, will be sold off to Hearst Magazines and fall under the company’s Hearst Autos umbrella.
This is a big deal as, many years ago, MotorTrend was in competition with the likes of Road & Track, Car And Driver, and Automobile as well as Autoweek, all of whom had different owners at one time. Now they all have a single owner.
Here’s the announcement from Hearst:
MotorTrend Group will expand Hearst’s collection of brands for car enthusiasts and buyers providing even more up-to-the-minute content, commerce and community. MotorTrend Group’s vast portfolio embodies car culture from electric vehicles to timeless classic customs, reaching over 30 million users every month. Its robust events business draws approximately 500,000 passionate enthusiasts every year to iconic experiences such as HOT ROD Drag Week, Roadkill Nights and the Japanese Automotive Invitational at Pebble Beach.
“The acquisition of MotorTrend represents a strategic investment in our business — one that enables us to expand our digital offerings, reach an even broader and more diverse community of automobile enthusiasts and bring the most innovative opportunities to the market,” Chirichella said. “We look forward to welcoming MotorTrend Group to our Hearst family as we continue to drive long-term growth across the business.”
Wellen said of the acquisition: “Over the past 75 years, we have grown MotorTrend into one of the most influential automotive multi-media companies in the world, reaching hundreds of millions of car enthusiasts across all platforms. Joining Hearst, a business I’ve long admired, will ensure that our beloved collection of brands continue to serve and entertain automotive fans for years to come.”
This might also explain why WBD killed off Roadkill as a show, since it would no longer own the brand it’s connected to after this year.
The company says that the brands will still operate out of the company’s El Segundo, California and Detroit offices. There was, thankfully, no mention of any layoffs, though redundancies are usually found over time when big operations like these merge.
As a publisher, I can see the enormous sense this makes for Hearst, which has faced the same difficult advertising market that everyone else has over the last few years. Now when a car company sends out a request for advertising proposals there’s one less piece of competition for the team at Hearst (full disclosure: I did some work with the team at Hearst in my previous job) when it comes to the bidding.
In the short term, I don’t think this will impact the journalism done by any of these brands, though as a news consumer, I think it’s better when media isn’t so consolidated, which is why we will try to continue to exist as an independent organization.
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Photo: Citizen Kane
I haven’t picked-up a physical copy of any car magazine since i was in the hospital for surgery in 2017. {I miss the days when I looked forward to the last week of the month to find my latest copy of C&D or R&T in my mailbox.
I miss the Bonds.
I too am about done with them. I first subscribed to C&D in the late 1970s. Through the heyday of the David E Davis years to the Csaba Csere years the writing was tight, the opinions were objective, and they lived up to their motto. But the continued collapse of the publishing industry as a whole has hit them just as hard as any publication. C&D has recently shifted to a larger format, less frequent publication schedule, and I’m afraid it’s the last gasp. I will miss it when it’s gone. In the meantime, turn your hymnals to page 2002 and remind yourself of what some of the best automotive writing was like.
While cleaning out my parents’ house I found a big stack of my C&Ds from between ’91 and ’05 or so. I hate reading them now because they just make me sad…the car magazines back then were so damn good.
Or this example…
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/the-opel-kadett-asassination-by-car-and-driver/
If they fire Liebermann, I’ll consider this a win. If they bring back Roadkill, even more a win. Neither will happen, but a man can dream.
Huh. I got back into print when they hired Liebermann. Different strokes, n’at.
I used to like his stuff back in the day when Motor Trend was still on YouTube, but ever since he’s just gotten out of touch, has a hilariously short fuse on social media when people call him out on his BS, and has just slowly devolved into an unlikeable 4-letter-word/certain-type-of-bag. That’s just my take at least. His takes on EVs versus Hybrids are hilariously wrong too.
Soon all restaurants will be Taco Bell and the prophecy will be fulfilled.
I remember reading in school in the 1900s about anti-trust laws, guess that was an old fashioned notion.
Two immediate thoughts:
1. Does anyone ever actually read corporate statements? I can’t think of a time where I actually got something of value from them so I’ve learned to skip them.
2. I am not looking forward to read about the job losses that will stem from this.
Ok a third… I stopped reading Motor Tend when the PT Cruiser came out and they bought into all the corporate led hype around it, trying to label what was clearly a hatchback style vehicle as some sort of class defying vehicle that could be a van, a wagon, SUV, etc.
So does this raise or lower the amount companies need to pay, er, advertise, to win Motor Trend Car of the Year?
Consolidation in the media industry almost never results in better content for the consumer.
Consolidation in any industry almost never results in anything good for the consumer or workers. Shareholders are really the only people that benefit.
Small loss. Most Motor Trend content was infomercial level garbage between endless commercials anyway.
This smells just like the days when ClearChannel bought up all the radio stations. Pretty soon every month will just be Mustang vs Camaro faceoffs and Truck of the Year competitions.
Yep. The automotive equivalent of playing “Paradise City” ten times a day.
Yeah. Who would do that? I definitely don’t do that. That would be a weird and excessive amount of Paradise City.
*slinks away*
It may make sense to a publisher — imagine the cost savings: one art department, one pool of writers/photographers, one point for ad sales for multiple titles — but the end result will, I suspect, mean one of two things: either these three magazines will lose what’s left of their individual identities, or one or two will simply be absorbed into the one with the highest circulation.
As one who freelanced for many publications over the years, I watched titles die as they were taken over by corporations and couldn’t generate the numbers those giant entities demanded. Each time cost-cutting was on the menu, the end product was progressively neutered. From the few magazines I’ve bothered to look at in recent years, editorial has been cut back — and, alas, dumbed down — to make room for ads.
I suppose the Internet had a great deal to do with rendering the traditional magazine irrelevant. More than a few of us were put out to pasture by the closure of once-familiar titles.
Do I miss it? Damn right. Am I bitter? Somewhat.
Maybe if Motor Trend had more shower spaghetti, chainsaw-related EV modifications, and taillight deep dives they’d still be relevant.
This feels…bleak. I just hope there aren’t mass layoffs as a result. There were already too few places to go as a writer in this industry when it comes to national-level auto pubs. Now with all the main mags under the same owner, frickin’ yikes.
“I just hope there aren’t mass layoffs as a result.”
Oh, Stef. You sweet, summer child. Cost savings are half the point. Increased prices are the other half. (Executive comp structures are the third half.)
I probably haven’t bought a magazine (car or otherwise) in 20+ years. Last time I even looked at a magazine was at an airport newsstand a few years ago when I was early for a flight. It was full of information I’d already read online a couple months prior. I’m not sure how the magazine industry exists at all anymore.
Even worse, in keeping with their naming system it’ll have to be called Motor & Trend
Given GM’s only recent backing off of being a trend company, this might actually turn out to be prescient.
Maybe they can claim the plus-sign: Motor + Trend.
Do people still read these mags? I somehow ended up with a free Kindle subscription to Cart & Drivel and I can’t be bothered. It’s such a pale shadow of what it was back in the day.
I’m still a 30-year subscriber to Car and Driver. It’s not what it used to be but the writing is still solid. I look forward to each issue, even though they’re fewer and farther between.
I wonder what happens to the TV channel. Time passes super quickly when watching those auctions.
Do young people read magazines anymore?
We olds don’t read them either.
Airports. That is where us olds pick up a copy of one of these mags.
Sometimes at the bookstore (another thing nobody does), I’ll peruse the magazines to see what’s still out there & what it’s like. Sports Illustrated is now very thin and cheap-feeling.
So are the models in the swimsuit edition. HEy-ooooo!!!
I do that all the time. But I almost never BUY the things.
For years I had a very expensive European classic car magazine habit, and would buy those all the time. But they take up space, are insanely expensive, and I can just read them at the store in their comfy chairs when I want to waste time.
The American Big Three car magazines haven’t been worth reading in years.
I have a Kindle app with enough books on it to last a lifetime for my silly amount of flying – slow year, I have ONLY flown 100K miles this year so far. And oddly, somehow I seem to have ended up with a lifetime subscription to Car & Driver on Kindle – I never read it, the writing sucks now. The kids here do better, and the mags rarely write about anything that I care about anyway.
I read Hagerty’s magazine every two months when it shows up in the mailbox. But that’s it.
By circulation, maybe the biggest car magazine there is!
My 13-year-old has been a subscriber of Archaeology magazine since he was 8. He’s… peculiar.
We like to joke that the second youngest subscriber is probably 5x his age.
So the Department of Justice blocked the Albertsons / Kroger supermarket merger due to anti-trust concerns. Why is this any different? Now, Hearst will own nearly everything in this market?
Oh, that’s right, there is no market anymore for these types of publications….. 🙂
Sad but true. The publication part, I mean. Screw that supermarket merger. That part is Good and true.
Because car magazines are not a commodity whereas food is.
Hopefully, this won’t affect Mecum broadcasts on Max. They even let me fast-forward through the commercials!
I miss Automobile. Unfortunately it is why I tried to make writing a career and as a result it ruined my life.
Is it hear-st or hurst? Or he-arrrrst?
Hearse-d
It’s the Symbionese Liberation Army.
They liberated symbionts?
Yes, from the Trill!
No.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbionese_Liberation_Army
Hurst, as in ‘Patty Hearst heard the burst of Roland’s Thompson gun and bought it.’
All the more reason to get my automotive news from this fine establishment.
Really, I don’t trust any of the others anymore.
Torch/Streeter 2028.
Clarke/Hardigree 2028 more like. And don’t give me that “must be born here” nonsense. Rules are meaningless now, so I’m sure we can swing it.
Pretty sure myself and Matt could take Mercedes and Jason no sweat.
All because of that damn sled.