As people age, like many on this board, magazines and their online versions become less interesting.
The longer you’ve been hunting and shooting, the more it takes to catch and hold your interest. The short of it is, older fellows are not their target audience. They are looking for a younger demographic. Younger readers have less experience, so basic 'how to', hunting and shooting articles get consideration.
Here's an example. This is from the editor of a Cdn magazine asking for pitches:
Expanding viewership
Try to include groups beyond our core demographic (males 35-65 yrs.) such as families, women, and different ethnicities, particularly in photos. This should not be staged, but reflective of the content. Please include this info in your pitch if it's relevant.
The older I get, the more my focus sharpens - the more I realize that I have way fewer days ahead of me than I have behind me and that I need to focus much more on stuff that deeply interests me and quit trying to be well informed about all the latest "advances" in the gun world. "Want the skinny on the latest WonderGun?" Nope. "Want to know all the recipes for feeding it?" Double nope. Since the rags are full of that stuff, and most of the reviews/insights about the vintage stuff that does interest me contains very very little I don't already know/am aware of/already own in my fairly vast personal library, caused me to drop magazine subscriptions years ago and now only peruse them at Barnes&Noble - and actually buy maybe one out of every six I peruse. Not to say I know everything but I thirst for more intimate knowledge about vintage stuff than what the "introductory" type articles usually provide. Sure, a little stuff gets by me that maybe I should learn about or would like to learn about but, meh, I'll live and the world will continue to spin on its axis but at least I'll have saved myself a bunch of money.
I'm also one of those guys who detests reading digital magazines/books. My very soul requires feeding by paper&ink. When it comes down to one last old curmudgeon still buying physical books, that guy will be me.
