The Role of Media in the Hunting Industry: Landscape and Opportunities

“Our responsibility is to provide credible and reliable information and to highlight contexts that influence and educate hunters and the general public. A natural consequence of this is consumer influence. Our readers and viewers are not only hunters for whom hunting is a way of life. For some, our platforms are the place where they discover new equipment, learn new techniques, and educate and develop themselves in hunting.

“In this sense, hunting media is educational, inspiring, and reliable, which is crucial for shaping consumer choices and continuing ethical hunting and wildlife management through hunting.”

The Changing Landscape of Hunting Media

The importance of the media in hunting is not really in doubt, but its role has changed due to the digitisation of the landscape in which it operates. Today’s consumer has different expectations and habits when it comes to how they seek out or consume information about their interests. Long gone (or maybe just vastly reduced) are the crowds of men thumbing magazines at the newsstand – today, the first place many head to is an online product. Websites, social media, podcasts, YouTube videos, you name it – digital media has it covered.

“For media companies like ours, this has meant evolving from pure publishers to full-scale multimedia platforms, while maintaining the editorial depth and authority that our audience trusts,” says Boris.

“Changing media consumption habits demand more from every magazine, channel, or platform. News must be better, come faster, and always be available.

“Technological developments in hunting equipment have also had a major impact on consumer journalism. New hunting regulations and changing game populations also place different demands on hunters, hunting dogs, and management. Urbanisation also plays a major role when we meet people today who do not even have a grandparent living in the countryside. More and more people lack knowledge and experience of the countryside, hunting, and wildlife.”

The evolution of technology in the media has been such a seismic change that it has actually helped new hunting media companies come to fruition. In the early 2000s, magazine publishers found their readers were changing their habits with social media fast becoming the place where content was consumed. A chance meeting at that time between the Editor of Sporting Rifle magazine, Charlie Jacoby, and photographer and filmmaker, David Wright, led to the creation of one of the UK hunting industry’s most prominent online brands: Fieldsports Channel. It began with a TV show and developed into a media brand with a huge following on YouTube and a bigger reach than anyone from the traditional magazine world could have dreamed of.

“The impact of social media on hunting media has been] extraordinarily positive,” explains Charlie Jacoby. “When I edited hunting magazines, I could hope to reach 5,000 to 10,000 people per issue. Last year, Fieldsports Channel had 12.75 million unique viewers on YouTube. It is an audience that the hunting/gun trade could not have imagined thirty years ago.

“We are in a position where we can claim a truly global audience, making it easy to attract people into hunting. Note the resurgence of hunting among young people in Germany and Denmark. I put that down entirely to promotion of hunting by young vloggers, such as David Carsten Pedersen and the Hunter Brothers.

“The only problem we have is that there is a large industry committed to ending hunting and a smaller gun control lobby, which has access to the same platforms, and has successfully embarrassed them into anti-gun and anti-hunting policies. However, an examination of the relatively small social media audience our detractors achieve shows they are fighting a guerrilla war. It is for us to lose more than for them to win.”

Meeting the Audience Where They Are

For companies and brands seeking to promote their products and services to hunters, the explosion of different ways in which they can do that may seem daunting. Should you embrace every single new technology as it arrives for fear of missing out on the next big thing? Should you remain partially with traditional media, which some argue is seeing a small revival, given people’s digital burnout? The answer, which will involve significant research and understanding of your target market, is that you should try to meet your audience where they are. Some will still read magazines, some prefer YouTube, and some try every new media channel as it develops.

Charlie continues: “The legacy hunting press has wasted the last twenty years trying to interest readers in digital versions of its print copy. It may now be too late for them to leverage their previously strong brands online.

“Since 2004 (launch of Facebook) and 2006 (launch of YouTube), the following media types have emerged that are relevant to advertisers: Blogs – despite widespread irrelevance in the face of new social media, the most mature of these have survived, mainly as resources for technical information about guns and hunting. With the move from websites to AI in search results, these will become more important to advertisers for product placement and less important for advertising.

“Chatrooms – largely replaced by Facebook groups, a few of these exist across Europe. They should, in theory, remain useful for advertising.

“WhatsApp groups. The ‘hidden media’ of WhatsApp groups is likely the best way to achieve influence, but the most difficult. It currently requires personal access and monitoring of enormous amounts of data.

“Ambassadors and influencers – these are a popular choice for advertisers. They may be able to cover most of the media types above. They come in enough audience sizes for some to be encouraged to come to ‘influencer days’, which may result in media coverage.

“Hunting TV – now delivered mainly by YouTube, this is the largest audience available to advertisers, but the most expensive.

“Shows and Expos – these remain popular. With the availability of information about hunting and shooting online, there has been a slow merger between the consumer and the trade show since the early 2000s. They have struggled to extend their audiences beyond their visitor numbers, which makes it hard for them to compete with web audiences numbering in the millions.

“Brand pages on Facebook, Instagram, etc – Editorialised, these are some of the best value available to advertisers.

Traditional Methods Still Have Value

This list represents just a few of the options available to brands – figuring out how to best utilise the vast arsenal of hunting media weapons at your disposal can be tricky. Any good marketer will tell you that it’s foolish to rely on only one. Any good brand will try to be present on multiple platforms and use research and statistics where possible to assess success rates. Despite the smorgasbord of digital flavours available, some believe that traditional media still has a very worthwhile place at the table.

“Traditional media are still very important,” argues Boris. “Magazines, for example, have an authority, depth, and consistency that digital media often lack. They also reach parts of the hunting community that may not be as digitally engaged.

“Magazine readers are loyal consumers who place high demands on their product. The impact of print advertising remains strong, and a print product lives longer in a household and reaches more people in a household than a click on a screen does. When influencer marketing and individual content creators are everywhere – with varying quality of content, credibility, and hunting ethics – it becomes even clearer that traditional media plays an important role.

“At the same time, brands and retailers must realise that no single channel can reach the entire target audience anymore. The most successful strategies combine the credibility of traditional media with the reach and immediacy of digital and social platforms. It is in this balance that real influence arises, and that is something we at 3F Media Group are really good at – a traditional media angle with magazines alongside the newer and fast-paced angle of VOD / YouTube and social media.”