Gordon's Republic

Gordon Macmillan

There is a long piece in the Press Gazette today (doesn't seem to be online) on the future of the People, sister title to the much better performing Sunday Mirror, where former editors and writers discuss the paper's future.

It is a story of true newspaper decline. Five years ago the paper was selling 1,202,315 copies. Today the paper's circulation fell below the 700,000 copy barrier with a monthly average sale of 696,901, down 3.61% on September. Its six-month average circulation figure is 727,248, down 12.17% from the previous year. That's more than half a million copies. Poof. Gone in smoke.

What is Trinity Mirror chief executive Sly Bailey doing?

During those years of sales decline the paper has suffered another kind of decline as well. One of marketing/advertising support. The paper seems to have run no TV ads during 2007, just a single 20 second TV spot in 2006 (promoting its Football Season Handbook) and just two in 2005.

Look further back and in 2004 the paper once known for investigations and particularly for its sport coverage ran as many as a dozen TV spots. Further still and in 2003 marketing activity was busier than ever with TV spots, press and radio.

No one is saying advertising will save you, but it does appear that the lack of marketing support for the paper has only exacerbated its decline.

The cuts to marketing spend have mirrored cuts in editorial at the paper. Between September 2004 and the following October 30 journalists were cut.

Two weeks ago Mark Thomas stepped down as editor to "pursue other career opportunities" to be replaced by a couple of Daily Mirror hacks Lloyd Embley, assistant editor of the Daily Mirror, and Gary Jones, head of news at the Mirror.

Trinity Mirror still maintains that the departure and the appointments are about "the future" of the paper, but it is difficult to see this for a paper, which has so many sales, lacks investment and has several times in recent years been linked to sell-off rumours.

In 2003 Trinity Mirror rejected claims that it was looking to sell the struggling red-top (back then it was still selling 1.1m), which it had relaunched the previous year.

Many in the industry believe it would make sense for Trinity Mirror to sell the paper off and concentrate on its other Sunday tabloid, the Sunday Mirror. At least that way it could generate cash for the group, but would it now get enough to make it worth while? Something not.

Others see the paper's future as being merged with sister title the Sunday Mirror.

Phil Hall, a former People staffer and News of the World editor, told Press Gazette this is the option he sees as most likely.

The Sunday Mirror would get a sales pick up with Hall estimating it at around 300,000 to 350,000 or around half of the People's sales.

He sees no point carrying on without investment to buy stories, get staff and market the paper. He puts the investment figure at around £3m- to £4m. Another tabloid executive turned PR man, Jack Irvine, ex of News International puts the figure much higher. He says you need £25m to £30m to reverse the cuts and get the stories.

Whatever figure is needed (and you know it will closer to the higher one than the lower) Trinity Mirror is simply not going to suddenly do that. If it was going to do so it would have done it already.

It all appears that someone at Trinity Mirror can not decide which way to jump. Whether to go this way or that? In the meantime a once major British tabloid newspaper has gone down the toilet. Its sales will not stop falling on their own. I worked out for myself.

Of course, as Trinity Mirror points out, and they should be allowed to do so, this could all just be crappola. Nick Fullagar, Trinity Mirror's director of communications says that the company does not run loss making titles and that it is not about to start.

"The People is a huge player in the marketplace and makes money. People who sit there in their armchairs, who have never run a newspaper business, don't have a foot in the real world in terms of understanding what the challenges are for newspaper's in today's market."

That isn't strictly true. Everyone knows the challenges in this digital world are huge, but it is a challenge that needs to be faced and that just doesn't seem to be the case.