Lebedev about to spend £1 on the Indy

According to yesterday's Sunday Times,

Alexander Lebedev, the former KGB agent turned media mogul, will this week pay a token £1 to take control of The Independent — the same price as buying one copy of the paper from the newsstand. But he will pledge to invest millions in the loss-making title and the Independent on Sunday over five years.

The report adds that

The final hurdle to a sale is close to being overcome this weekend after Independent News & Media agreed to take part of the pain of a 10-year printing deal with rival publisher Trinity Mirror.

Great news for the Indie-No Liddle

Roy Greenslade broke the news yesterday that Ron Liddle negotiations with Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev are understood to have ended yesterday.

Bloody good news-enough said

Would Liddle be a disaster at the Indy?

This week has seen a fair amount of speculation about the future of the Independent with rumours that the Russian Billionaire Alexander Lebedev was close to purchasing the troubled group.

He may also bring in Rod Liddle as the new editor and combine the weekend edition into one with a set up similar to the weekend FT.There is also talk of it being given away during the week

It is still all specualtion of course but as Paperhouse reports

There can’t be many people with any affection for the Independent who are happy about the idea of Rod Liddle becoming editor.

reminding he readers that

Liddle was indirectly behind one of the great journalistic screw-ups of the Iraq war – as editor of Today, he recruited Andrew Gilligan, who both found an internal source to blow the whistle on the exaggerations and bad intelligence in the “45 minutes” dossier, and then ruined the story’s credibility by mishandling his quotes and revealing his source.

and that sinec then he has concentrated on "obnoxious opinionising for the Times and the Spectator."

Indy rumours of Russian sale

Yesterday it was Guardian speculation,today it's the turn of the Indy.

The FT carries a story that the Russian billionaire owner of the London Evening Standard is in advanced talks to buy the The Independent and The Independent on Sunday.

According to the report

Alexander Lebedev has held intermittent talks over the past year with publisher Independent News & Media to buy its UK national newspapers. However, plans were put on hold over the summer as INM started wrangling with its lenders about the restructuring of its €1.3bn (£1.2bn, $1.9bn) debt pile.

Guardian holds onto its online lead

The latest ABCE's are out and Guardian.co.uk is still out in front when it comes to unique users of its site.

31.7m to be exact in October,a fall of around 4 per cent and just slightly in front of the Mail no doubt helped by that Jan Moir article.

Large increases in the month for the Times up nearly 13 per cent to 20.87m and the Independent over 10 per cent at 9.7m.

Indys bond holders come to a deal

At least some of the uncertainty surrounding the Independent may have gone away as the paper reports that last night

Independent News & Media, the publisher of The Independent and The Independent on Sunday, last night struck a deal with bondholders that will see creditors swap €123m (£110m) worth of debt for a 46 per cent equity stake in the company.

It is the first stage of a restructuring plan which says the paper

comes after months of negotiations and several so-called standstill agreements, which deferred debt repayments.

The plan should be completed by the end of the year

We just think it’s a neat way of getting more toys on the site.

Much of the talk yesterday was of the BBC's decision to share video content with other organisations.

Telegraph.co.uk, Guardian.co.uk, Independent.co.uk and Mail Online are the first to benefit and will embed clips from UK politics, business, health and sci/tech.

As Paid Content reports

The deals will use the BBC’s branded player, with a superimposed BBC logo and BBC.co.uk linkbacks; videos are geoblocked to UK users only. The clips “must not be directly connected with any advertising on third party websites – for example, pre or post roll advertisements will not be permitted”,

The Independent's Jimmy Leach writes on Independent minds the rational for his paper taking it on

In truth, it’s probably more of a significant step for the BBC than for us.

We just think it’s a neat way of getting more toys on the site.

The interactive map of the future of papers

The Independent is taking the debate on the future of newspapers to an interactive map

The paper says that

The aim with interactive collaborative maps of this kind is to weave together all of the salient issues, positions and arguments dispersed through the community into a single rich, transparent structure – in which each idea and argument is expressed just once – so that it’s possible to explore all perspectives quickly and gain a good sense of the scope and perceived merits of the different arguments

Phew what a scorcher

It is not very often that the Express and the Independent agree on their front page but both are happy that the sun is shining.

For the Express,

SCORCHING sunshine and signs of an upturn in the economy brought the feelgood factor back to Britain this weekend.

Whilst the independent reveals the medical reasons for lapping up the sun

Boosting levels of vitamin D could cut the incidence of breast cancer by a quarter, bowel cancer by a third and it should be offered to the population as part of a public health drive, scientists say.

Kelner comes out fighting again

There is an interesting interview with Simon Kelner in Media Guardian this morning.

Kelner is not a great fan of the publication seeing it as constantly sniping at his empire.

It is worth noting though his comments about the business state of the Indy titles

This on the rumours of going free and/or online only

"We make tens and tens of millions in circulation revenues," he says. "To have only one source of revenue leaves you very exposed. And that goes for the idea of online only too."

and this about the losses at the paper

He is furious about Media Guardian's use of the phrase the "loss-making Indy" when, he claims, the title loses less than many of its peers including the Guardian. It is, he says, "a form of journalism that would make Pravda ashamed".

Is the Indy a little nearer to closing?

The latest news from the offices of Independent News and Media is that it is in danger of breaching its banking covenants by mid May.

This PA statement on the Indy's web site says that

The owner of the Independent and Independent on Sunday warned today of "significant doubt" over whether the entire company can continue as a going concern.
Independent News and Media (INM), which owns more than 200 newspaper and magazine titles across the world, said it has failed to reach agreement with bondholders over renegotiating a €200m (£179.6m) bond, due to mature on 18 May.

Roy Greenslade doubts whether bondholders would take the company to the brink

Doubtless, the banks and bondholders have been making those calculations based on the value of INM's current assets and that may well be why they have been playing hardball with the company's board. Can they hope to get their money back from such a declining set of assets?

Nevertheless these are dark days for the Indy and events over the next few weeks will be watched with very close scrutiny

The Indy is for sale.......again

The lastest claim being in the Times this morning.

According to the report by Dan Sabbagh

Independent News & Media is looking for investors who might be willing to buy The Independent outright or to take a controlling stake. A merger with another London daily is also considered an option.

and has

asked Nicholas Shott, a media banker at Lazard, to drum up interest, although work remains at an early stage

Janet Street Porter tries to prove her critics wrong

It is the 1,000 Independent on Sunday today and former editors reflect on their appointment.

This from the most famous of them Janet Street Porter

My appointment in June 1999 caused great anxiety among the chattering classes – I can't imagine why. Kelvin MacKenzie said I couldn't edit a bus ticket, exactly the kind of pathetic putdown I'd expect from his track record on The Sun. I was hardly a newcomer: having started my journalistic career as a columnist on the Mail in 1969, I'd spent 10 years as a TV executive at the BBC, running 35 series with a multimillion-pound budget. I'd regularly presented political programmes as well as running live, news-based output, but reading critics such as Roy Greenslade, you'd think that the Indy's bosses had lost their marbles, and handed the paper to an airhead who'd be putting frocks and froth on the front page.

Greenslade-now the time to make the Indy free

Some Indy bashing from Roy Greenslade on his blog today.

As well as commenting on its decision that desk editors at The Independent are to take over subbing duties while reporters file copy directly for publication,he thinks that the time is ripe for the paper to start giving way free copies.

Refering to the executives of INM he says that

They have clearly rejected the really radical step of switching from newsprint to online (probably because the website is attracting many fewer users than its rivals).
But there is a halfway house. Gavin, is this not the time to give The Independent away for free within your M25 heartland? It could remain as a paid-for elsewhere.
This would undoubtedly improve the volume of readership and might therefore enhance its chances of appealing to advertisers. It would offer competition to Metro, which covers the news but, unlike the Indy, does not publish comment and analysis.

Kelner wishes he could uninvent the internet

Simon Kelner has made his views known on the internet and the media's failure to incorporate it into a workable business model on making occasions.

Yesterday evening,speaking to students at UCLAN,he reiterated those views describing the net as the "most serious threat to journalism"

The editor in chief of the Independent is an old boy at the University ,back in the days when it was simply Preston Polytechnic and the journalism course contained just thirty individuals.

The relationship between print and online was to Kelner,a conundrum.But the media made a big mistake when it decided to join the rush to put its content online.

People got use to free content and to turn back the clock now was akin to shutting the barn doors after the horse had bolted.

The Independent,he felt, should opt out of the inflationary rush to put all its content online,instead concentrating on niche output which may sustain a paid content model.

The revenues from online advertising will not sustain quality journalism

He is still optimistic about the printed word,believing that newspapers are not simply a medium for content but an intrinsic product themselves.People prefer to hold a newspaper and feel the pages and get the print on their hands.

He displayed a passion for journalism and asked that if the media crumbled,who would hold the legislators to account? Newspapers had to change and should concentrate on giving some meaning to the stories.

We have heard the viewspaper model before.It was a model that he firmly stood behind at the Independent and since being moved upstairs is no doubt pressing to the newspaper's board.

Kelner is a journalism enthusiast and it was heartening to hear his passion coming through.However as with his paper,idealism has to make way for the economic realities.

Glover responds to rumours of an Indy sale and hopes he doesn't get a snake charmer.

Stephen Glover responds to the many rumours about the sale/rebranding of the Indy in his column today in the paper.

It is curious how some journalists, who should in theory be in favour of increasing the number of titles, often seem eager to close them. Perhaps they find The Independent especially annoying, though it is hard to understand why they should.

Although recognising some truths

It goes without saying that I hope that Sir Anthony does not get rid of the titles, whose faithful and benevolent guardian he has been as its sole owner for the past 11 years. But times are very, very tough for newspapers. If Lord Rothermere is forced to flog the London Evening Standard, which he and his father had particularly cherished, it is not unimaginable that Sir Anthony will also have to steel his heart.

Whatever happens to the Indy and I sincerely hope it stays in the hands of a kind benefactor,let's hope at least that it doesn't go down the route of a free paper.

Go online says Greenslade to the Indy

I understand that Simon Kelner has already dismissed it but it is worth reading Roy Greenslade in last night's Evening Standard.

The Independent has taken risks in the past. Now, surely, it's time for the paper's owners to make the most revolutionary leap of all. It should stop publishing its newsprint editions and go entirely online

His logic is to build on the sucess of the online operation

Despite INM's initial reluctance to acknowledge the growing potential of internet news outlets and its misguided attempt at first to charge users, The Independent website is not doing too badly at all nowadays. It is certainly growing its audience rapidly, having registered 8,408,910 unique users in September, an increase of 93% compared with the same month last year.

and scrap all the costs associated witgh print bu going exclusively online.The big if aboout this is that online advertisers are unwilling at the moment to pay the rates needed to pay for quality journalism,an argument that Kelner will no doubt continue.

Why my £50 is safe

Just back in Manchester after a long weekend with a group of friends in the village of Litton in the Derbyshire Dales.

I will put some pictures up later.

However scanning my RSS feeds quickly before setting off for Preston,I see that Dave Lee is convinced that the bet that I had with him back in the summer that one of the UK nationals will go free may come to fruition

Dave believes that the merging of the back room operations between the Mail and the Independent announced on Friday

now that the Indy is moving to Northcliffe House — and sharing the same subs that put together the Mail, as well as being only two doors up from the aforementioned Metro — I reckon there’ll be a free print edition very soon. This time next year.

I'm not sure whether the move will lead to a free Indy.I would have thought that this is purely a cost saving exercise designed for both publishing houses to halve their high fixed costs.The Indy will surely want to keep its brand distinct.Producing a free copy will diminish the power of its brand

The most savage job cuts so far.

The bad news continues to roll in from the media with the Independent group announcing that 90 jobs are to go.

Independent News and Media says that it will save around £10m as it cuts a quarter of its editorial staff from the Independent and the Independent on Sunday.

Speaking to the FT,Simon Kelner its managing director said that

“If we are to safeguard the future of the papers, there is no other way to do it.”

The paper is estimated to be losing around £10m a year and its last circulation figures suggest that it is struggling more than the other qualities.

The Company employs a total of 430 staff in London

Oct ABC's and the Indy takes a fall (again)

The latest ABC's out today have proved to be a bit of a disaster for the Independent group of newspapers.
Its Sunday paper dropped in sales for the third month running to its lowest ever circulation figure.It now stands at 165,764 a drop of 21% on the year.

Sales of all the Sunday's have dropped over the 12 months but nothing like on the scale of the Independent and October saw the sales of the other qualities rising slightly.

Other highlights from the figures sees the FT continuing to shine in a month where all the Dailies continue to show month on month falls.The Sunday Daily star also took a battering with its sales down 20% in the month