A silver lining for Johnston Press

The latest results are out this morning for Johnston Press.

The regional newspaper publisher has reported that operating profit fell to £71.8m for the 53 weeks ended 2 January 2010 from £128.4m the year before. Revenue fell to £428m from £531.9m.

However a little bit of a silver lining as advertising revenues appear to be reversing their falling trend,as the rate of decline reduced throughout the period with the first quarter down 33.9 per cent and the final quarter was down 11.2 per cent.

According to their chief executive

The year ended with the group in a much stronger position than it began: advertising is more stable; circulation trends have improved; digital revenues are growing; our cost base has reduced significantly and we have renegotiated finance facilities for 3 years."

The compnay also confirmed that debt reduction was its biggest priority.In accordance with the provisions of its revised financing arrangements, no dividend is proposed for the year.

Independent regional titles flourishing in Cleethorpes

It's not all about regional newspapers consolidating and streamlining.

A heartening piece from Hold the Front Page which reports that an independent weekly newspaper set up in 2008 by two former Northcliffe executives is celebrating having reached its 100th issue.

Celebrations are happening at the Cleethorpes chronicle where

Despite the recession, the part paid-for, part-free title has gone from strength to strength and circulation has now grown to 11,000 copies a week.
The last paid-for weekly to distribute in the North East Lincolnshire seaside resort disappeared more than 30 years ago.

Manchester Evening News-good business move or the death of regional news

It is either the final death knoll of the regional paper or a sound business decision.

Yesterday's announcement that Guardian media group are finally cutting their ties with the city of Manchester must have made CP Scott turn in his grave.

After persistent rumour,the "unthinkable has happened at the Manchester Evening news will fall into the hands of Trinity Mirror.

To much wailing and protest by some who see TM as an asset stripper,the paper will move from its spacious glass house in Deansgate to the confines of Oldham.

Now for one,this may not be a bad move.The paper's journalism has been accused of being stuck in its city centre confines,unwilling or unable to respond to the needs of Greater Manchester as a whole.Maybe its journalism will get a better idea of what is going on as it looks down from the heights of Oldham across the urban surroundings.

As pure business sense,Roy Greenslade makes the point that

It is a regional newspaper, in an industry which is buckling under the twin pressures of the credit crunch and the growth of digital rivals. Guardian Media Group, with its small disparate regional network, was not the organisation to pull the MEN out of that hole.

Trinity,for all their faults,at least have a semblance of a regional structure.Whether that will increase the provision of news in Manchester remains to be seen.

The fact that it has been sold for just £7.4m and the cancellation of a £37.4m print contract that had 10 years to run shows how desperate GMG was to sell.How we have fallen from the heady times of multi million pound regional newspaper deals!

Finally what will happen to Channel M not part of the deal.It has suffered dramatic cost cutting in the last twelve months.Their state of the art news collecting vehicles are no longer seen on the streets of Manchester and with Urbis converting itself to football matters it will only be a matter of time before they move out of their plush surroundings.

Yesterday's move could be seen as a major turning point in the provision of news in the city.Maybe an opportunity for the hyperlocal scene to take off or even a fresh breeze blowing through the current evening paper.

As with nearly all areas of the country,the events show that traditional regional news models no longer apply.

Meanwhile GMG can concentrate on pouring their resources into their flagship paper which by all accounts continues to lose money

Changes at Liverpool's Daily Post

Liverpool's Daily Post has revealed a number of changes to its style and content.

How Do reports that

The paper’s editor Mark Thomas said that: “The exciting new daily package and innovative design we have implemented from today is aimed at delivering more stories, more and better background, analysis and comment, and presenting everything to our readers in an even more accessible way.”

The business section has undergone the greatest transformation including the previous weekly focus on creative industries moving to twice weekly.

The Standard-first of many?

For some it might seem a risky policy in an age when regional and local newspapers are under immense pressure but the Evening Standard's editor Geordie Greig has decided to challenge the paper's critics head on.

Responding to a survey which told the paper that Londoners considered the paper to be too negative, not celebratory enough and guilty of failing to cater for the capital's needs,he has launched a campaign aimed at saying sorry.

Public transport in the capital will now be carrying banner adverts saying sorry for losing touch, sorry for being negative, for taking you for granted, for being complacent and for being predictable.

Perhaps this is a portent for all regional and local papers who could well be accused of the same crimes that the Standard has put its hands up to?

Another vision of regional coverage

A rather worrying interviewe given to journalism.co.uk by former Northcliffe digital multimedia specialist Nick Hewitt who is pessimistic about the regional and local newspaper industry

Two quotes struck me.Firstly his vision of local publishing

It wouldn't surprise me if within the next three years at least 50 per cent of local titles are just printed in one large area, with an insert put into them that tries to make them as local as possible,"

and secondly on advertising

Newspaper advertising has never been particularly effective Gone are the days where we say we don't know what's happening with it and people will spend the money on it."

But he says

the effectiveness of online advertising is equally worrying: "We know now, because we can measure it digitally, and quite frankly, it's very very poor.

Trinity Mirror suffers as does regional advertising

More bad news for the regional newspaper industry as Trinity Mirror reveals a 22 per cent drop in operating profits for last year and says that advertsing revenues are falling buy 30% in the last couple of months.

What makes those figures is that regional ads are falling at a much greater rate than the nationals 37 per cent compared to 16 nationally.

It doesn't bode well for the regional papers if this is being seen over all regional titles

First thoughts on the OFCOM proposals

By all accounts the long awaited report by Ofcom into public sector broadcasting which has just been released is high on rehetoric but low on solutions.

It recognises that the model is broken but fails to give a solution on how to fix it.It gives ITV what it wants in terms of public service committments but fails to provide the solutions for replacing that service.

It has rejected the top slicing argument and believes that Channel 4 needs to merge but doesn't give the answer to whom it merges with,only saying that it could be BBC Worldwide or Channel 5

More worrying signs for democracy in this new media age

Two articles that worry me greatly as we move to this new media environment.


Andrew Grant Adamson reflects on the decision of Archant to cut a further 20 jobs from the East Anglian Daily Times and the Evening Star in Ipswich.

Several hundred people packed the Debenham High School assembly hall with with more unable to get in.
I saw no sign of a reporter from the EADT but he could have been one of the late arrivals at the back of the hall. At the end of the meeting I saw no reporter checking facts with speakers.

and he continues

The following morning there was no story in the EADT about the meeting which had called to hear local opinion on calls from Debenham Leisure Centre for a bail-out from the parish council. As a proportion of the council’s tiny budget it would be larger than the Government’s rescue of the banks. £25,000 a year for a place with a population of 2,000 is a lot of money to raise by taxation.

So what are local papers for if they fail to report on this sort of event? I totally agree with Andrew when he says that

It is sad that a debilitated media is becoming unable to provide the lubrication democracy requires.

Then on the same subject we see Jay Rosen who explains why the Internet Weakens the Authority of the Press

He maintains that in the age of mass media the press was able to define the sphere of legitimate debate with relative ease because the people on the receiving end were atomized-- connected "up" to Big Media but not across to each other. And now that authority is eroding.

According to Jay we are not

allowing ourselves to think politically.Deciding what does and does not legitimately belong within the national debate is—no way around it

Give libraries a role in providing local news

With local and regional newspapers dropping like flies,so to speak,Steve Abram comes up with a decent solution.

What about making libraries the new seat of journalism he asks?

So, if you're in a public library and your town is potentially dependent on the McPaper or a major national (If the NYT survives), what could you do? Can you use RSS feeds to assemble a local news source from smaller independents? Can you surf the local blogs and aggregate? Would your town miss local news in print? or have they already gone 'e'?
Seems like an opportunity. You might even be able to hire some of the folks being put on the street by the big conglomerates as they lay off folks.

Ht-Martin Stabe

Are the newspaper conglomerates responsible for the decline of regional and local newspapers

One of the tragedies of journalism has been the decline in both influence and sales of the local press.

It has been attributed mainly to the change in lifestyle that has occurred over the past couple of geneartions as well as the consolidation of ownership which has taken the papers out of the hands of local people.

Thios morning's Sunday Herald takes a look at the industry in Scotland(HT-Martin Stabe)

It carries an interview with Johnson's Press's departing cheif Tim Bowdler who discusses the remarks of the head of the BBC trust,Sir Michael Lyons who

indicated that the Beeb believes that there may be a gap in the market for better local news, where local publishers have long argued that the introduction of a licence fee funded competitor is unfair.

According to Bowdler

The things that interest people have undoubtedly evolved. News is still quite high on agenda but it does not have quite the same focus. Fifteen years ago local papers broke news; that now happens online and papers are more a place for community debate. There is not such a heavy focus on court reporting or covering every council meeting."

More worring thouygh is some of the comments from other locals in Scotland

some journalists argue the news content of the papers has long been eroded by new technology and changing working practices

says the article as well as

journalists on his title are now expected to do more production work and to upload stories onto the web, activities which have damaged the overall quality of the papers: "It's the quantity of local stories that has changedfut, much of it down to lack of time and lack of contact. We try to plan our way round the lack of actual news stories. Story counts are way down, headlines and pictures are much bigger and type sizes are continually being edged up

It's not the net it is the structure of society that is killing the local daily paper

Roy Greenslade is another analysts that puts the declining of newspapers in this case the regional down to something a bit more than the arrival of the internet.

Writing into today's Evening Standard,he says that

The crisis for regional papers is structural, stretching back way before this current economic slump and prior to the ubiquity of computer screens

And it is a structural and demographic problem.

the combination of three overlapping factors— population growth, geographical mobility and immigration. Added to the growing size of our cities and towns, the specific identity of people with the places in which they live has broken down when compared to the 1950s and 1960s.

and he adds that the papers have broken a fundemental relationship with their market.

Papers were close to the people and the people were close to the papers as the bearers of a local history that was important to those whose families had lived within the area for generations.
Few papers can rely on these traditional audiences any longer and, it should be added, the problem is compounded when papers are staffed by journalists who have no links with the regions they serve

Thus

A single paper simply cannot satisfy an increasingly fragmented modern British population

As to what can be done.Is their any hope for this dying market? Well there is the niche approach or the approach of the Manchester Evening News which gives away its copies in the city centre boosting reach and stabilising advertising rates.

Johnston Press rights issue illustrates all is not well with the regional market

Another indication of the falling market for regional newspapers as Johnston Press one of the success stories in the sector announces its intention to raise capital through a rights issue.

In its statement to its shareholders the board cite the reasons as being

1.the Company's trading performance has been adversely affected by decreasing advertising revenues and the Directors believe this challenging environment will continue in the near term.

2.The above factors have impacted on the Group's leverage and the Board's views on the Group's future funding needs. Whilst the business remains cash generative, current credit market conditions suggest a recapitalisation is a prudent measure

The measure are planned to bring in an additional £250m

Manchester Evening News-How long is it sustainable

Not the first time that the Manchester Evening news and its free city centre give away has been mentioned on this blog.

But a good perspective on it from Follow the media this morning

Manchester can lay claim to increasing total circulation by some 34% reaching its initial goal of a total 180,000 circulation, but to do it the paper is giving away more copies than it is selling. It thought it would sell about two-thirds of the total and give away the remaining third

All regional papers took a battering in the latest Abc's published last week,the MEM not different in recording a fall of 13.5% year on year in the turmoil that is hitting the regional press.

Things have not quite gone to plan though as the article continues

The original idea put into effect in May, 2006, was to give away 50,000 copies downtown where the newspaper only had around 7,000 daily sales anyway and continue selling in the suburbs where it had around 127,000 sales. The idea was to keep those suburban sales intact and circulation would jump to around 180,000 copies.

and as in often the case

Mr. and Mrs. Manchester Public saw it differently. Why pay for something that one can get for free? Gradually the newspaper had to start giving away more copies – it went to 60,000, and it didn’t take too long before that number reached 92,000 and now it just shy of 100,000.

So where does this leave the paper?At the end of the day it is still reaching a large target audience whether they are paying for the paper or not and advertisers must still be impressed by the potential reach even if it will always be dificuklt to quantify how many people are actulayy reading it.

Take a walk thru Manchester and it is pretty near impossible to avoid picking up a paper.In fact carrying on under your arm is a good defensive mechanism to stop being harassed by other distributors.As a journalism student I will read the paper,but how many actually do?

It is an interesting business model and will no doubt be watched with much interest.

Wales has to wait for its Welsh language National Newspaper

Intersting news that the palns for a Welsh language national newspaper have been scrapped.

The paper,Y Byd, was due to launch next month with the backing of the Welsh assembly and its editor Alun Price claimed that it would

revolutionise journalism in Welsh

The Welsh assembly is being blamed for the scrapping according to Press Gazette

Ned Thomas, the company's chairman, claimed the Assembly Government was not fulfilling its commitment to expanding funding and support for Welsh-language press

.

A case of unfair competition

Press Gazette are reporting that the BBC's plans for 60 ultra local web sites has not gone down very well with the local newspaper industry.


It quotes fron Ian Davies,development director of Archant who says

What a strange approach to public service media. Look at what the community-leading local press is doing in reinventing itself to provide local content and ‘connectivity’ beyond print; then take a huge publicly funded stick and swing hard to cause as much damage as possible to this vital organ of local comment and democracy.
“This is not competition. This is BBC, full-bodied, unfair, damaging to existing emerging services, competition. It seems that attempted demolition is the sincerest form of flattery.”

I agree with him to a certain extent.We have identified that the local and hyperlocal news resource may be one way of developing future media resource.Local papers already seeing their markets collapse are best placed in terms of rtesource to persue this route.The BBC can do it without the cpaital risk of a private company.

It's not just the Beeb that cutting

Iain Dale writes a good post about the effect of the ITV network cutting back on local news, subject refered to in this blog earlier.

Iain writes

It seems to be completely mad that ITV wish to but their regions from 12 to 9. ITV Meridian plans to axe the programme which serves the South East and replace it with one which covers an area from Southend to Weymouth, and up to Swindon. At a time when the internet means that localised services are expanding all the time, ITV is moving to centralise their news operations. Perhaps the day of local TV news really is over

TV news is going to get a lot of attention this week when it appears that the BBC job cuts are going to be directed at news services rather than channels/programme principles.Let's not take our eyes off what is happening at Itv.

A Southern Bias?

This weeks's Economist carries a good piece in which it argues that the trend in national newspapers to focus on the South of England has now extended to the regional press.

Talking specifically about the coverage of the floods in the North,the piece says

News from northern England is harder to sell than stories from the south, according to Robert Torday of ING Media, a London PR firm hired by Hull to get its flooding story back in the headlines. Hull and some other northern cities are experiencing an identity crisis brought about by the decline of the manufacturing industries that once kept them going, he suggests. National newsdesks realise that the old cobbled-streets stereotype is out of date, but are not sure what has replaced it.

There is no doubting that in the case of the floods,the second flooding which hit Southern England was much more widely covered in the press than the devsetation in Hull and other Northern Towns.Perhaps the Thames threatening the homes of Middle England was seena s being far more newsworthy

But the Economist has other reasons

Lean times in the news business have not helped, forcing most papers to cut back on correspondents outside London. Fewer reporters writing more copy (to fill supplements and now websites) has increased reliance on news agencies and press releases, at the expense of scoops from Thorngumbald and other quiet corners

. adding that

A generation ago, most national reporters trained on a local paper and then rose through the ranks. Now, even local freesheets expect cub reporters to pay for their own training in shorthand and the like. Bright sparks have little incentive to toil on the regional circuit before aiming for Fleet Street.