If you have not already heard… Then Brace yourself, for we bring you shocking news. Sport Diver UK magazine; the official PADI journal for Europe and the Middle East, a stalwart of the diving media for decades, is to cease publication. The final edition is already on the shelves. No doubt, like us, you are stunned at this news and are currently starring wide-eyed at the computer screen, mouth agape, perhaps with a stream of dribble running down your chin and dripping messily onto your keyboard. We know, we know. A world without Sport Diver UK! A world without the musings of Mark Evans, Will Harrison, Paul Rose or Martin Edge, how will you survive? Who will explain to you that the Red Sea has the best diving in the world or that Thailand has the best diving in the world or that the Bahamas has the best diving in the world or that Mauritius has the best diving in the world? Where will you get all your medical advice from, now that the Dive Doctor has packed up his stethoscope and gone into private practice? How will you know what to wear without Scubalab telling you which wetsuit is pre-eminent and which baseball cap is de rigueur this season? And, how will we all find out what new and inexpensive diving course the PADI organisation has developed to expand all the world’s diving knowledge and, more importantly, its dive badge collection without this glossy-paged magazine.
Okay. None of you are thinking this are you? You’ve probably never even heard of Mark Evans or his cohorts. And, even if you did, you didn’t really care. You get your medical advice from your own doctor rather than a column in a monthly magazine after all. You don’t care that the best diving in the world could be found in the exact same place that Sport Diver happened to be visiting that month and no doubt think that Scubalab is Aquaman’s secret hideout rather than an equipment-testing column. News of the sudden demise of the magazine that Mark Evans spent eighteen years of his life editing will probably elicit nothing more amongst the bubble-blowing masses than a gentle raised eyebrow or the shrug of an uncaring shoulder. Which may explain why the magazine has hit the rocks in the first place.
Now, as far as we are aware the owners of Sport Diver UK, Bonnier International Media (who only bought the title back in 2013), have not been forthcoming in their reasons for ending the magazines existence. Even in his final editors letter, Mark Evans, doesn’t really explain the underlying rational behind the decision to cease publication of what he himself calls a “major player in the marketplace”. And yet, in that final letter, the reasons become all to clear.
For starters, as we’ve rather heavily hinted at, the vast majority of you water junkies and bubble-blowers out there didn’t give a rats hairy bottom about Sport Diver and we suspect you had good reason for this. A quick trek through the online diving forums and you get a feeling for why the magazine ran out of air.
Here are a few snippets from those forums:
Even with reviews, you'll notice, you won't find anything negative about anything. Print editorial is too afraid to piss off a manufacturer who may pull advertisement funds. Though, it is also relevant for online publishing. Scuba is such a small niche that there are only a handful of manufacturers with deep pockets. You don't want to tell potential customers to stay away from some of their products; it is not what companies pay for. Thus, you get all kinds of review articles that are so bland, feel like whatever you buy, you won't go wrong. There is simply no critique anymore other than on forums by private entities.
I'm just surprised people haven't got how much they are being conned into paying for a catalogue every month. Some of the articles are so obviously just filler.
I stopped reading it regularly when the percentage of content about overseas diving went over 90%. I know there's not a massive amount to be written about UK diving, but not everyone can afford to travel overseas for dive trips all the time.
I was a subscriber but constantly wondered why. It was just an excuse for free jollys for the editor and assistant. Content was poor, and was miles behind Diver Magazine in every department. A new editor who actually gave a monkeys about turning out a decent read may have worked wonders.
Well, it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that the general consensus was that Sport Diver UK was getting things badly wrong. They focused on pleasing advertisers rather than readers. Features became irrelevant fillers, equipment tests became bland and uncritical whilst more and more pages were turned over to advertisements. The result was the readership turned off and without readers; advertisers had no one to sell to. Rather ironic isn’t it that the desire to make money from advertisers rather than from sales of the magazine would deliver the deathblow. We could of course be wrong; Sport Diver might just have a great respect for its readers, but before you decide that let’s go back to that final letter from the Editor, Mark Evans, entitled “So long and thanks for all the fish”.
Now we don’t know about anyone else but what we took away from that letter was that Mark’s and Sport Diver UK’s greatest achievement as a whole was holding a party for all the “movers and shakers” in the diving industry. A party that was so good it became an annual occurrence and in the last two years became a “lavish event” for a select few hundred with musical entertainment and the “showmanship of Monty Halls and Andy Torbet”. Err… Wow. Looks like Mark and friends really have a lot of fish to miss.
Anyone who’s a fan of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy books (as Mark Evans clearly is) will no doubt know that the Hitchhikers Guide was an electronic travel guide originally published by Megadodo publications. Megadodo was an organisation that regularly relocated its editorial offices for reasons of climate, local hostility or tax concerns, had little time for it’s readership and finally lost all credibility with said readership when it relocated to a resort planet. Maybe that’s what Mark and the other members of the Sport Diving team thought they were: Megadodo employees. Maybe it really was just one long party of diving, cocktail sipping and going to industry parties with the occasional chore of writing something down and publishing it now and again. If so, then the gravy train has finally hit the buffers and Mark and his cohorts will have to sober up and seek alternative employment but who can blame them for having a party for as long as they did? Apart, maybe, from all those Sport Diver subscribers, who are probably not going to be all that impressed with the “it’s been a blast for us” message. If, on the other hand, Mark and his team (and there have been a lot over the years) truly were interested in delivering a quality media product to the diving fraternity then sadly they have failed and that failure should be a lesson to all others who are thinking on embarking on such a business model. Yes you can make money from advertising but for god sake, make sure you have a readership to advertise to!
So Sport Diver UK wasn’t very good and has paid the price for its mediocrity but why, you may be asking, are we so bothered about its demise? Well for one thing, it’s a PADI publication. Which means it has had us in fits of laughter over the years (although probably not intended) and we will miss the giggles. For another it has given us endless material to poke fun at, from editorials that contradict themselves and the “you’ll love this new piece of equipment” reviews to the endless recycled features about Egypt, Thailand and Mauritius et al. But there is another reason. Sport Diver has been around for years in one guise or another and like a lot of things that have been around for so long it becomes familiar, it becomes comfortable. Sport Diver was like the old regular in the local bar. The one who sits in the same spot and always seems to be there mumbling to himself. Yes, he bores you to death with his endless anecdotes, often talks nonsense and never ever turns down a drink but without him the bar seems oddly different, less recognisable. Despite its many, many flaws, we’ll miss Sport Diver UK, we really will.
On the upside though there is still Diver Magazine. In March’s edition, a guy called Steve Warren argues that when PADI entered the UK it was more professional than BSAC, particularly when it came to charging fees for training. Steve goes on to say that the drive for cheaper training and the subsequent failure to charge high fees is endangering the quality of training and destroying the livelihoods of trainers; although he then argues that PADI are the biggest culprit for doing this. It’s an interesting piece and has provoked some long guffaws over the beer. So goodbye Sport Diver UK and thanks for all the laughs. Hello Diver Magazine, we look forward to all the laughs to come.
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Update 6th March 2017
Just as we were lamenting the demise of Sport Diver UK along with Mark Evans and his crew, it appears that our laments are premature. Sport Diver UK has morphed into Scuba Diver Magazine. Now we don't know how much the magazine will cost but the website promises unbiased reviews, which will be a change. Another break with the past is that the magazine will not be affiliated to any single training organisation but will cover them all - which sounds good. The website states:
scubadivermag.com is the ultimate online destination whether you are a scuba diver, technical diver or freediver. Whatever agency you trained with, and whatever your level of experience, you will find plenty to enrich and expand your diving horizons.
Which does beg a question. If the website is free to access, why would you buy the magazine? Still, it's nice to know that Mark's partying days aren't over just yet.... Cheers Mark
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