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
Why does this remind me of the Beeper King joke from 30 Rock?
Generally speaking, taking a monopoly position in a declining market CAN be a shortcut to ridiculous profits, as long as the market is only declining and not dead, that is
Stopped subscribing to R&T back when Egan retired. Dropped the other 2 soon after that. Tried some euro rags for a while (Octane was good fun) but none of them have been good for a long time.
I had a few months left on my subscription when R&T switched to using nice thick paper and focused even more on pictures. It felt pretty nice, like a car pamphlet we used to be able to get at car dealerships. Didn’t get me to continue my sub though. Wonder how going for this niche is doing for them.
I probably will not renew. For every interesting issue, two are not.
Same. Publishing just sucks anymore, apparently for both sides of the equation.
I was massively saddened when Egan retired, but the rest of it improved massively under Larry Webster. Plus, they had Sam Smith.
Then Webster took his team to Hagerty. Goodbye R&T.
Of course, with Apple News, most of it is available to me again.
And GRM forever.
I always thought Smith was the second coming of Egan.
Me too. He’s a wonderful writer.
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/
I recently took a box out of storage and was delighted to find a copy of the April ’68 C&D with the 2002 review, and what a review it is. Rumor is that DED was fired from C&D after this review due to his calling out Blaupunkt (a then-C&D advertiser) for the sucky radio in the 2002. (Of course, most owners of German cars in the ’60s or ’70s would back his assertion.)
It used to be, in the era of that review, that you’d read C&D for the great writing and honest opinions if a car wasn’t good, R&T for the motorsports reporting and thorough road tests – in which they’d measure things as esoteric as driver seat comfort by driver height, speedometer error, and piston travel per mile – and Motor Trend for ridiculous Car of the Year awards for things like hidden windshield wipers and plastic bumpers (I kid, but barely).
Aspiring automotive writers/reviewers should sit down with a collection of R&T and C&D reviews from the ’60s and ’70s to learn from the masters.
That’s part of the whole allure of C&D. They were blunt. It made for great reading especially since some of the writers (I’m looking at you, David E. Davis) did not care if they PO’d some advertisers.
They had a brief resurgence when I was younger, even rehired DED as a columnist and reviewer. He had a full page column in the back of the magazine. Made for good reading.
Sad to see where it’s all gone.
LJK Setright in Britain’s Car magazine. Best.
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.
Same. I loved him and Jason on YouTube. He kinda sucks now tho.
Well, Jason was the one to watch.
Jonny was the one to endure.
I love listening to him an Matt Farah argue whenever Lieberman is a guest on The Smoking Tire podcast. I rarely agree with Johnny, but I enjoy those two going at it.
Agreed.
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.
25 years ago my grandfather, who had spent 70 years in the oil & gas industry (started fresh out of high school, didn’t fully retire until age 87), was pissed that the government was letting all the oil companies they’d broken up out of Standard Oil remerge with each other. It’s gotten so much worse since then.
Related, I spent 7 years working in administration at a nonprofit where one of our most dedicated, dependable, and reliable volunteers was a retired AT&T lifer who absolutely delighted in the fact that most of the company had been gradually reassembled post-1984, guy was ridiculously loyal to something that technically no longer existed . He had worked in R&D at Bell Labs (and successors) in New Jersey from the late 1940s-early 2000ss, and it was obvious retirement was not entirely his choice
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.
God I forgot about the whole PT thing, they were doing more work for it then Chrysler’s PR department. Literally trying make a segment for it when it was just a tall wagon.
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*
I’ll slink away with you. Please take me home.
Definitely far worse choices for things to be played ten times a day.
Motor Trend TV is already that banal. The only series I like is Roadworthy Rescues. Everything else is questionable customizing and lifted trucks.
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.
I feel the same. I was once an editor of a car magazine (not in America). I consider it a career highlight even though my tenure was brief. And I was genuinely sad when it shut down.
There’s something to be said for having a physical copy of your hard work to hold in your hands. The feeling is just different.
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.)
Oh, I know. I expect the worst until proven otherwise, which is why this feels bleak.
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.
They just don’t write about much of anything I am interested in. When I am bored on an airplane I will sometimes look at an issue or two and it’s just “whatever”. The older I get, the older my taste in cars gets – or maybe better to say that my taste in cars is mostly stuck between the mid-80s and 2010ish. Every year that goes by seems to be another nail in the coffin containing my interest in modern cars.
I totally agree with you.
Even though I was a teenager for most of the time I subscribed, I just couldn’t stay connected with C&D after the guys I was used to reading started stepping away – Yates, Phillips, Bedard, Csere.
That and the magazine slowly became a bunch of ads with a few pages of content in there.
In general today, I have a lot less interest in reading about the latest Ferrari super car I’ll never own, let alone see. I’d rather see a piece on a Pontiac Aztek.
Exactly! Those guys were amazing, and modern cars bore me to tears.
Give me Torch going on about the tiny differences in Beetles over the latest billionaire’s codpiece or interchangeable EV all day every day. Plus realistically, it’s the banter in the comments that is the fun part anyway – you don’t get that in a print magazine.
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 used to have a pile of English car magazines in the apartment that my wife referred to collectively as “restoring English rust buckets”
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 prefer the physical touch of paper versus a screen, regardless of how many miles I may or may not fly as that’s not something I feel a need to share. We have enough screens in our lives and I love reading a book and passing it on (signing it inside). It makes for great relationships building with my friends and peers more so then just talking about the book I read and think they’ll enjoy.
In an ideal world, I prefer paper books too. But reality is I am a voracious reader, and storing and simply transporting the number of books I read in a week on the road is a non-starter. It’s not unusual for me to read 4-5 books in a one-week work trip with two flying days. And Kindle Unlimited has an excellent selection for $10/mo, all you can eat. For those I do buy, Kindle Editions are notably cheaper than even paperbacks. It’s just a win-win all around for me. Paperwhite Kindles are an adequate substitute, though I mostly just use my big-ass phone at this point – one less thing to haul around the country.
Valid reason for not finding it ideal to pack books. I challenge you to find that ideal and pack 1 book with you and pass it forward.
This old does.
There’s one in every crowd. <shrug>
Yelling at the clouds just like me.
“You kids get off my lawn”
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!
And it’s a really good magazine. Long articles by excellent writers who you will recognize from other outlets. I’d say it’s as good as C/D in its heyday but has a bit different focus on older (but not exclusively older) vehicles.
I just subscribed thanks to your post. I had no idea.
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.
Right, there is a big difference between someone consolidating the market on selling food and someone consolidating the market on car magazines.
Which is ironic considering WalMart owns the grocery space for the most part.
I really don’t understand some of this shit at all.
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.
“if the headline is big enough, it makes the news big enough,”
Pour one out for Automobile. It was a breath of fresh air when it came out
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.’
Was that so wrong? lol.
Booo-urns
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.
Now that would be a fun election. Adrian and Matt vs. Jason and myself.
I would run on overturning the Chicken Tax and the 25 Year Rule while Jason would establish a department of amphibious vehicle development.
Who said anything about an election?
ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
{ Switzerland dot com slowly backs away from The Autopian’s comment section to drink some cheese }
Greco-Roman, best 2 of 3 falls?
breaks beer bottle on the edge of pool table
What do you think?
Ok, Freestyle it is.
And tail lights
I initially read that as “department of amphibious vehicle department”
All because of that damn sled.
*throws sled into incinerator*