A Tough Time For Regionals
By Neil Dodds
08 March, 2006
Sales of paid-for regional newspapers fell by as much as 12 percent in some UK regions, according to figures released by the Audited Bureau of Circulations.
The Guardian highlights some of the more savage cuts - the Leicester Mercury down 7.5%, the Lancashire Evening Post down 10.7, the Birmingham Mail down almost 12%.
The paper reports there doesn't seem to be a geographical pattern to the decline, though it would be interesting to see which newspapers faced challenges from new freesheets or internet operations. One of the worst-hit papers, the Birmingham Mail, had recently changed its news focus to cover more local stories - one of the "ultra-regional" tips commentators have been urging on newspapers to help them survive. It's perhaps worth noting that another Birmingham daily, the Post, was one of the four newspapers to register an upturn in sales - perhaps competition from a rival daily hammered the Mail's circulation? Sales growth was also registered in two Northern Irish newspapers, the Belfast Telegraph and the News Letter.
Despite these few sunny spots, the Guardian says that the dwindling sales of regional dailies continues to follow a pattern of decline - of around 2.5% a year over the past decade. The trend is similar for the national press. The newspaper commentator puts the decline in local papers down to young people losing the print habit and to increasingly mobility - young people move around more than ever, and don't become tied to communities.
There's no financial crisis in the industry just yet, though try telling that to the reporters likely to be hit in the next round of cost-cutting. Newspapers only make around 20 percent of their revenue from sales - the rest comes from advertising.
US media commentators are likely to gasp in disbelief if they read the above, and they're right: It hardly makes for a long-term strategy. If readers, particularly affluent, mobile ones, clear off elsewhere, advertising money will eventually follow. Moreover, free ad sites like Craigslist have eviscerated the classified advertising industry in the United States - a similiar upheaval in Britain cannot be far behind.
More hopeful is the changing philosophy among some publishers. The Guardian lines up two executives, both of whom realise that local media needs to move beyond its core business. Tim Bowdler of Johnston Press, sees opportunities in new media, arguing that "It's less relevant to think purely in terms of paid-for newspapers." Peter Williams of the Daily Mail and General Trust echoes this view: "It's very, very clear what we run are not local newspapers but local media businesses. Our business is to generate vehicles for readers to get information and advertisers to get their message across."
There's more brighter news elsewhere in the Guardian, and once again it's buried among more doomy reports. Another survey, this time for the British Journalism Review, detects the same declining trends, but finds a silver lining: Far more readers agree with the statement "I still find things I like in a newspaper that I can't get anywhere else" than disagreed. Better, the under 30s agree too.
Of course, this might be because they haven't figured out how to search the internet properly, but it is still a rare fillup for newspaper publishing. It is sure to be picked up on by those who argue that newspapers can flourish by differentiating themselves from other media: The report picks on Britain's Independent daily newspaper, which has switched styles to follow a campaigning, "viewspaper" strategy in recent years.
Those who call for a return to traditional reporting will take a close interest in the results, too - though their ideological opponents, who see opinion and entertainment as lifelines for the newspaper industry, will be able to argue their corner from the findings too.
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