Kalmbach sells Classic Trains

[Overmod]

Kalmbach sold all its rail-related business to Chattanooga-based Firecrown Media earlier today.

Firecrown has been an effective enthusiast publisher (FLYING, Boating, and the Internet site 'Freightwaves', and their CEO Craig Fuller has expressed an interest in

Firecrown plans to retain all of the editorial and content resources of the former Kalmbach Media brands

What this means for continued life, or improvement, of the free forums remains to be seen, but I hope we will hear something definitive about it here soon.

[daveklepper]

Worried

A check for two years of Unlimited Access is in the mail to the Wakeshaw address, with repients:

Trains and Classic  Trains, Kalmbach

I wonder if the check will be at all useful.

[Overmod]

Reasonably-researched article here:

https://www.amediaoperator.com/analysis/firecrown-acquires-multiple-brands-from-kalmbach-media/

Mr. Fuller apparently bought the assets with a personally-secured bank loan charging 7.25%, and he seems to be saying that he's looking for at least 18% margin on the media operation as a whole.

The 'communities' represented by the forums were a key part of the 'Kalmbach Media' transition; a number of articles at the time noting that there was a trusting group of 'fans' who could reasonably reliably be cross-marketed to.  We certainly saw this being pushed... but in my opinion more than a little ineptly.  When Mr. Otte claimed Kalmbach made no revenue from the forum advertising, that was my flag that Kalmbach had lost touch with that whole portion of its strategy (and it was a major part of the strategy that was forward-looking).

I don't have much doubt that some version of forum community will continue, even if Firecrown's prior acquisitions don't have extensive 'discussion' pages set up as threads.  What concerns me is the likelihood that a 'newest and bestest' forum will be included under a trains.com Unlimited Membership, and in fact that the legacy 'archive' of post content will only be provided that way, too.

Whether they also fix the moderation and other foibles that have caused so many to leave... that's another thing that remains to be seen.

Facebook, and its excuse for an interface, is a non-starter as a replacement, and in fact I don't bother with any Kalmbach Facebook page and wouldn't likely start.

[pennytrains]

The Facebook pages are just a news outlet and blogging venue for the company and staff.  No outside subject can be discussed like this forum allows.