However irrelevant you may think it is, it's the most successful magazine that covers traditional folk music. You can't produce an expensive full colour glossy mag like that without big sales.
Though British folk music is only a small part of its domain, its focus is always on what's based on or derived quite obviously from traditional 'roots' music. You won't find any navel-gazing singer-songwriters in it, even if that's what some people call 'folk' - but then, as Ian has just said, fRoots makes no claim to be a 'folk' magazine.
I'm not hugely interested in much of the material that appears in each issue, though some of the stuff about music in other countries is at least educational when I have a spare moment to read it, but the reason why I subscribe is because it's almost the only 'World Music' magazine or organisation that includes English or even British music. Some 'world music' organizations exclude anything English speaking which is bizarre.
As for putting up with insulting postings, if Ian didn't get some vociferous disagreement with his views and editorial policies he wouldn't be doing his job right, but if insults are the best argument somebody can come up with it's not worth losing any sleep over them.
I'm not entirely happy with fRoots - it would be nice if there was a magazine of similar quality that matched my musical and geographical area better. Living Tradition is struggling along doing the right kind of thing and EDS has made astonishing progress in the last few years.
I also wasn't pleased with a CD review they published - I wouldn't mind it being in the 'and the rest' section, but it was clear from the text that the reviewer had looked at the track list but not listened to any of it.