Shares Magazine was totally revamped this week.

Out has gone the tabloidy style, and aticles on small caps, in has come long articles by market 'experts' and large cap reporting.

The Prospector has been axed.

I am disppointed with the changes, and wondered if anyone else here subscribed or bought Shares, and had a view they wold like to share?

chessplayer,

And for whom were the chnages made?

They effectively changed the content of the mag, so anyone already buying was clearly buying for the old content, and was unlikely to be happy with the new, as there are few company reviews now.

In particular, the number of small AIM listed companies being covered is much lower now.

forward diary has now departed,,WHY !!

Perhaps they are trying to find an excuse to close down without refunding our subscriptions?

I suspect they are seeing falling sales - nothing surprining in that - times are harder now, Volumes down - so opportunistic buyers maybe don't buy from the news-stand.

I fail to understand why they have used grey ink,
why the Issue date is twisted 80 degrees and reversed and very difficult to read . . . it's quite important, esp when sorting through back-issues.

Some omissions (like the EPIC) are now fixed

And it would be nice to have the "Buy at" price, because MM's move prices up as soon as a share is mentioned in Shares! ( SO, I'd prefer to wait.)

Nevertheless I buy it each week.
Sadly the post is late here (S>London), so I need to go to the shops to read it before lunch!

hangon--you sound like a bit of a masochist to me.Still,I expect you have your limits as well!

I would make that 90 degrees unless your house is on a hill of course :-)

Just rang up and cancelled my subscription after about 3 years of subbing.

Mag is getting worse not better, gave it plenty of chances.

Printing it on thicker paper this week doesnt make up for lack of content either!

No magazine received this week, anyone else?
Has improved lately, especially welcome pages on currency and other commodities

Stegrego,

I bought a copy osf Shares just before Christmas for a train jaunt up north, and was suprised at how painfully thin the mag had become!

Clearly the adverts dropping has lead to a corresponding reduction in share reporting.

I hit lucky in that the mag i bought had some articles on companies and the sector i concentrate on, but I found there were few shares mentioned, and the old 'feel' has gone.

To be fair, they HAVE addressed some of the issues raised here at the time of the revamp, but you have to ask why they changed it in the first place, and why it took so long to rectify when they must have lost subscribers in the meantime!

The index is STILL at the back, which is ridiculous. IMO, and probably only satifies their Chinese customers.....

What I do notice is the mag is not sold in so many locations as before, and I would like to see their recent circulation figures, in comparison with the pre revamp ones.

I certainy wouldn't subscribe again, but MAY buy on spec agsin IF I flicked through and found some content of interest first.

Overall, this is surely an abject lesson in taking a popular brand, making uneccesary changes without doing market research and referring to your customers, then ignoring those same customers' comments when things were clearly wrong, and then losing market share!

I bought a recent copy of the Investors Chronicle, and was pleased to note how much that had improved, visually at least, with a better layout and more colour, and felt it represented better value.

Andy: In answer to your abject lesson/losing market share comment above, our circulation (ABC Audited) since relaunch is up 34.5%. Previously it stood at 13,561 a week now the audited number stands at 18,236 a week.

Our audience before the relaunch was 90% private investor, the revamp and marketing focus since has been successfully targeting analysts, brokers and the company directors of the quoted companies themselves, whilst trying to cater for the private investors at the same time.


Mike

Pretty impressive figures then Mike.

If we get the charts up working properly and the stockwatch portfolios sorted out we should be ready to go forward when the next bull market comes along and dump advfn on its sorry ass.

Now that would be really nice.

Mike,

Well I have to confess to being absolutely staggered!

Clearly the changeover from the PI to the professional world has been a huge success.

I will buy this week's copy to read on the run up north on Saturday to see the latest edition.

I wouldnt buy it but get it for free on my weekly Eurostar trips. Doesnt take long to read it

Whenever I go on a trip abroad I normally buy Shares and the IC to read along the way.

I have to say that I have bought a couple of the recent Shares editions, and the magazine has virtually returned to what it once was, a focus on AIM listed stocks.

I still have some of the old editions at home, and the only real difference now is the number of pages, but a lot were adverts, so not too much difference in the content, IMO.

It is good to see the magazine concentrating on the junior market, and I enjoy the read once again.

The ONLY gripe (apart from the index STILL at the back!) is the non reappearance of The Prospector page, which is a great shame, and I think there should be two pages, one for oil and gas, the other for resources. THere is massive interest in the resource sector right now, it seems a shame to miss it.

Well done for restoring the magazine to what it was formerley, I am a regular buyer again now.

I like the new Mining Resources Quarterly supplement.

There seem to be plenty of detractors of the mag on this site, but if they help you to pick a winner, then I can't see any cause for complaint !
One thing that I do find aggravating , however, is the index. It is not uncommon to have a company page reference to be wrong or not even there !
I would not have thought it too difficult to get this one right. Still, it is possible that someone on the staff is out to annoy the punters !!

Kim,

I haven't seen one of those yet, but they should be reporting the sector every week IMO, it is so vibrant.

Andy, it is a booklet with a bold MRQ on the front. Issue 1 dated June 2011, 27 pages. I must confess I nearly binned mine thinking that it was an advertising leaflet!!

A weekly precise, if nothing else, would be nice I suppose.

Perhaps renaming it: News (about Shares) of the World might fill a gap and also do wonders for circulation?

.. That will depend who the proprietor is.