MarkUK:
Sport Diver in the UK is affiliated with PADI, but it has nothing to do with the US publication of the same name. Totally separate entities.
It gives the reader a new perspective on dive travel as the Brits see life a lot differently than we North Americans do. Our target for weeklong trips is obviously the Caribbean, the Limeys have a well beaten path from the Red Sea down to the Maldives. You will see less liveaboards and more day-dive land based operations. In that they also have a large ex-pat population in the far East, they also can be found all over the W & SW Pacific, from the Philippines down to Australia. This is where they dive, much as we think about Cozumel, Cayman and Curacao.
To the contrary, you don't see a lot of them in the Galapagos- that is the 'extreme' for them, much as we look at their regular haunts. They do manage to show up in Tobago, then Northward up to that other country James Bond (a known subject of the Queen) used to hang out in, the Bahamas. We all know what we have the easiest access to.
We US/Canadian divers are so brainwashed by magazines to demand liveaboards due to the many glossy photo laced articles- we cant even notice that we are in the absolute minority of visiting divers in most exotic locales. As SDM once proclaimed, "
Liveaboards are the only way to see (this area)... our readers would have it no other way!" What came first, the advertising by the liveaboard companies or the knowledgable demand by educated readers?
The UK magazine is absolutely not driven by ads. In plain talk, a resort or liveaboard is not likely to get a splashy feature "editorial" article with gushing descriptions and lots of pictures... not likely to get one of these just because they have chosen to buy advertisements in the back. It's pretty easy to see those connections in many other publications. In truth, we have
no publications here in the US of
any kind that are not beholden
in some manner to a commercial interest.
None. < ^ notice that period and the word 'any'?
I did a stand-up lecturette a few months ago. I held up "our" SCUBA magazine and pointed out the cover story headline,
"Stingrays~ Threat or menace?" (or so it seemed to infer), where the Brits ignored the Steve Irwin story as they should have. We read about underwater wreck photography and our articles go into all the hardware and flashes you'll need, the UK version counsels you to visit and observe as lighting conditions change throughout the day... using compass and a watch.
Sport Diver UK is also kind of fun and quirky, not too full of itself. If you can get a copy, I highly recommended it.