Search results matching tag 'The Independent'

The Independent loses digital director to Foreign Office

2680850 — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:35:43 GMT

LONDON - (Press Release) Jimmy Leach is to join the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as the new Head of Digital Engagement.
Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

Jimmy is currently Editorial Director for Digital at The Independent. His previous roles have included Head of Digital Communications for Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Director of Digital for Freud Communications and a variety of web-based jobs at the Guardian.

The FCO role involves leading the development of the diplomatic use of new media techniques, including the FCO's own global 40-language, 250-site web platform; a growing number of blogging Ministers and Ambassadors and a set of policy and geographic campaigns deploying a wide range digital techniques.

Jimmy Leach will take over in February from Paul Bute, a career FCO diplomat who currently leads the FCO's digital activities. Jimmy said:

'This is a fantastic opportunity to work in a multi-layered environment, working with a wide variety of digital tools. It's a complex area and a marvellous challenge. I know that the FCO already has a very good team in place and I look forward to working alongside them. I've greatly enjoyed my time at The Independent and I think the brand has a big future, but this was an opportunity I didn't want to miss.'

Ian Hargreaves, Director of Strategic Communications at the FCO said: "Jimmy has an unrivalled range of relevant experience and will enable us to go further in building digital communications techniques into the day to day work of pursuing the Government's diplomatic objectives."

Sad day for The Observer, but it is spared closure

255762 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:53:00 GMT

When the fate of some newspapers is to disappear for good Guardian News & Media's decision to pare down The Observer to four sections rather than close it outright was clearly a tough one in this climate, but it makes a lot of sense and it should be congratulated.

As reported last night The Observer will shrink from seven to four sections having been under threat of closure since August. Its sport, music and Woman monthly magazines will close and there will be some redundancies.

Guardian News & Media said it will fold the business and personal finance sections into the main paper, and the travel section into the Observer Magazine. Only Observer Food Monthly will survive the magazine cull.

Hopefully the resulting newspaper will be smaller, but perfectly formed. Besides, I'd rather have a paper like the Observer on Sunday or frankly The Guardian that doesn't suffer from over publishing that to my mind afflicts some Sunday newspapers where I am left asking "what is the point of this section – could you remind me (other than to recycle".

Paring The Observer down to the bare essentials described above still makes it a better paper than the Independent on Sunday (it is still publishing, right?) and The Sunday Times, which is a paper that can be best described as: "used to be pretty good".

The best Sunday paper is still the Guardian on Saturday as like a trip to Parisa it’s a two day affair.

It is a shame about the magazines as the Observer team did a great job producing them, but again there was always the nagging question in my mind as to whether that was what it should have been spending its money on. Yes they were good, but I was never sure whether they belonged in a Sunday newspaper (that could just be me, it is not unknown). The food mag is awesome though and I'm glad to see that continue.

I could say more, but really I'm glad to see the paper continue.

Follow me on Twitter

Does The Independent have a future?

2646379 — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:38:47 GMT

Denis O'Brien, Independent News & Media's second-biggest shareholder, has launched one of his biggest attacks on the company yet, claiming its flagship UK newspaper, The Independent, will close by Christmas.

The paper's six monthly circulation figure to August is down by 16.8% to 198,445. The Independent on Sunday returned the biggest decrease in Sunday papers, down 21.6% to 163,898.

Does the paper have a future or is it done and ready to join the likes of Thelondonpaper and Today?

Desperate measures: closing The Observer

255762 — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:47:00 GMT

Let's hope it is the nuclear option and it does not come to Guardian Media Group having to close The Observer newspaper. It would be tragic loss and would lead many people to have few options on a Sunday.

Guardian Media Group chief executive, Carolyn McCall, has confirmed in a memo that executives are looking at all options to cut growing losses, including closing The Observer, to ensure the future of The Guardian. As that's what the Scott Trust is in business to do.

GMG will have to make some really tough choices. Advertising revenues are falling and it looks like these will not return to pre-downturn levels. The Guardian Media Group has losses in the 12 months to March of £90m. Those are serious losses and require serious action. A smattering of job cuts and merging web operations of the Guardian and The Observer clearly do not go far enough in addressing the scale of the problem. Otherwise we wouldn't be here.

The Observer might sell 409,000 plus copies, but its circulation is falling and there are no signs that its decline will be arrested. This is not a market where we are going to see sustained rises in newspaper circulation that are anything more than quick hits based on short term promotions or news cycles.

So what to do? People don't often close newspapers, but it happens that it just hasn't happened for a long while.

If you do a search or think back there is a veritable pile of dead papers filling the bins of prosperity. The News on Sunday, Eddie Shah's Today and The Post, London Daily News, The Sunday Correspondent and Sunday Business. Admittedly some of those did not last very long and certainly have not been in continuous publication since the latter part of the 18th century.

In the current downturn, more pertinent (if smaller in circulation) are names like the Christian Science Monitor, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Rocky Mountain News, which have all gone in the US while others teeter on the brink. There are many other smaller titles that have also folded, but what is important here is that at no other time in post-war history have so many newspapers fallen so quickly.

If The Observer went it would be the biggest casualty in terms of circulation so far. It is also arguable a more important newspaper than many of those mentioned above. More than that it is a good newspaper (are there still great newspapers?) and to lose it would leave few choices of an alternative come Sunday.

The Independent on Sunday is so poor that it hardly bears mentioning. It has been deserted by so many of its once loyal readers. Its circulation is down 2.98% month on month to 162,474.

No Guardian reader will be reading the Sunday Telegraph so that only leaves The Sunday Times or not buying a paper at all.

An option also on the table is a slimmed down version of the Observer. I'm not basing this on any research, I'm shooting my keyboard off, but when it comes to Sunday newspapers there is a reasonable amount that I can live without.

The question if you are Carolyn McCall, Alan Rushbridger and the gang is what would readers happily live without, but continue to buy The Observer.

The staples of any Sunday newspaper are news (from home/foreign/business), sport, culture and a magazine. The rest is up for debate. If my copy of the Observer suddenly came sans personal finance, travel and seven day TV listings I would not be unhappy. I would still buy the paper. Even slimmed down, and with the Guardian behind it, the title would be better than the limp and exhausted Independent on Sunday.

Turning some of these weekly supplements into monthly supplements might be an option. Rotating these non-core sections in the same way that Guardian News & Media currently does with its Sport, Music, Food and Women magazines (all excellent) might be an option as would axing or combining one or more of those magazines.

The option of turning the paper into a weekly magazine seems like some kind of after thought in an effort to keep the brand alive. I'm not sure about that option. The effort should be, where reasonably possible, to keep the Observer going.

If it closes then I would rather see some of those elements of the paper transferred to the Saturday Guardian. It is already a powerful package, but making Saturday even stronger would not only prop up the Saturday paper, but it would probably eliminate the need to buy a paper on Sunday should The Observer no longer published. Fingers crossed that this is not the case.

Follow me on Twitter

Buying the Independent? Or not

255762 — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:45:00 GMT

Is the Independent being sold? There's something happening, what is it exactly? Independent News and Media Chief Executive Gavin O'Reilly has said today there have been no talks with Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev.

O'Reilly's comments follow yesterday's lunchtime story that Lebedev was in advanced talks about buying the paper.

Speaking today to a Dow Jones reporter at IN&M's annual general meeting O'Reilly said that he's received no offer for the group's UK titles and has had no discussions.

"The board hasn't received any offer whatsoever from Mr Lebedev. The press has got ahead of itself.

"I've had no discussions [with Lebedev]. The board has had no discussion."

It's an interesting turn of phrase -- the bit about "the press getting ahead of itself". It could simply be that there's no story, but it seems from the various reports I've read that there is something is going on.

Maybe it isn't a sale. Maybe only closer relations (so to speak). I still think anyone would be bonkers to buy The Independent outright. It makes no sense - even if you're a billionaire. The future is not bright for The Independent. It still remains a candidate for becoming an online-only title. I've written about this once (No independent future - merger, digital or bust) or twice (The end of print for The Independent?) before.

Oh yeah and while we're on the subject why would you buy The Independent when you have just taken on another money pit, the London Evening Standard. Twitter me that.

People usually answer this question by saying that a tie-up between Independent and the Evening Standard would save costs. I'm sure some would be saved.

But the Standard is a London Evening News paper and the Independent is an (under funded) national newspaper so just how many savings will there be for example on the editorial front? I think the answer is less than people think and more than you would care for.

There are also serious money issues to be solved; IN&M is struggling to complete a €200m (£170m) refinancing deal.

Funnily enough The Times says that Lebedev "is reluctant to take on 'all the liabilities', according to one source familiar with the discussions".

It also mentions issues about Lebedev's financial position after reports that he was temporarily unable to pay journalists on his Russian newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, in May. He is said to have lost a great deal of cash in the downturn. However, he claims to be worth over $2bn – I guess you would if you want to hang onto the title "billionaire".

Billionaire is such a bold and evocative word and, clearly, Lebedev is a bold individual. He did not get where he is without taking risks and there is no doubt that if this talk turns out to be correct, proves to be more than media gossip, then this would certainly qualify as another bold roll.

Update: I see that Media Guardian is reporting that Daily Mail & General Trust is considering taking a stake in the Independent titles should they be acquired by Lebedev. It quotes senior industry sources saying that the Daily Mail owner could take a 25% stake in the combined business...which would also incorporate the Evening Standard that it just got rid off? Hmm, guess we'll know soon enough.

Follow me on Twitter

MediaGuardian.co.uk to go paid for?

255762 — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:03:00 GMT

Very interesting news coming from Guardian boss Carolyn McCall today at the Fipp World Magazine Congress in London where she is talking about charging for content and MediaGuardian.co.uk could be one of its sites that goes paid for.

Carolyn McCall's comments follow those in March of Guardian News & Media MD Tim Brooks who said charging was high on his wish list.

She said: "More people are looking seriously at how they can make money charging for content that costs a lot of money to make. I don't think we will be doing much content online in B2B unless we get money for it. It's crazy that we do so much to put content out there but we don't get money for it."

It's interesting that McCall would cite MediaGuardian.co.uk and B2B as it is reflective of the way the thinking is going in the industry over what could possibly be charged for.

There seems to be from what I hear a consensus emerging that goes like this: the boat on generic breaking news has long since sailed and you can not charge for that content, there is simply too much of it out there; but specialist and niche news offers the possibility of charging.

This content is much more of a premium. It is not so freely available or freely replicated.

Some of this content used to be paid for. The territory that MediaGuardian.co.uk operates in for instance overlaps with what we do at Brand Republic and Haymarket in general and some of that content used to be paid for.

Take Campaign's original website, when that launched that was all paid for and only available to subscribers. I remember talking to people back then about that model when much other content was free. That is all a long time gone, but here we are again.

If the Guardian makes a jump and puts some kind of charge or attaches subscription access to MediaGuardian.co.uk and others specialists areas of its network (or the B2B Emap business that it owns that includes Drapers Record, Broadcast and Retail Week) then others will quickly follow. There will be a global trickle.

People will still be able to get much free, but for those who want more specialist business and industry news, they might well have to pay for it.

Follow me on Twitter

No independent future - merger, digital or bust

255762 — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 10:56:00 GMT

Someone is sitting around with a slide rule today trying to workout what to do about the Independent. Reports say it is up for sale with a merger with the Evening Standard as one option, outright closure a possibility, and going online only another. But is a digital only future really an option at all?

The Times reported today that Sir Anthony O'Reilly is actively seeking to sell The Independent 11 years after he took control of the title.It follows reports at the weekend of the huge debts that O'Reilly and his fellow investor Denis O'Brien are dealing with.

That means finding a buyer for a title that despite tough cost cutting, is suffering unsustainable losses. This is a point conceded by O'Reilly.

The options are finding investors, find a buyer or close the paper. The strongest current of speculation is that Alexander Lebedev, the Russian oligarch who bought the Standard in January, will emerge as The Independent's owner.

If he does it seems unlikely he will continue to publish the two papers separately, opening the way for a merger that could create a new stronger more stable paper. It is the kind of reshaping of the landscape that the downturn, the decline of print, seems to demand.

If Lebedev did buy it, but decides to keep it separate, the option is to cut further and to possibly only publish it online.

There was some discussion of this last year when I blogged about it following a post by Roy Greenslade.

It is too early to tell how a newspaper making a switch to online only will fare. Will its traffic surge or will those readers without a print anchor cut loose and drift elsewhere.

There are simply not enough examples or data around and that which we do have is flawed.

For instance, just weeks into life as an online only publication, web traffic for Seattlepi.com (what used to be the Seattle Post-Intelligencer) is down significantly, while former rival the Seattle Times got a big boost in online readers, according to Nielsen Online.

However, Hearst is disputing the Nielsen figures and says they are flawed. It claims its internal tracking service show that Seattlepi.com traffic jumped nearly 10%.

Another example we have is a recent Finnish study by Neil Thurman and Merja Myllylahti, from the University's Graduate School of Journalism. In 'Taking the Paper out of News' they looked at Finnish financial daily Taloussanomat, which has also killed its print edition and gone online only.

Their results showed that (and to their surprise) when Taloussanomat stopped being available in print, traffic to its website did not increase compared to newspapers who had kept a print edition. Six and a half months after going online-only, unique users were down 22% and page impressions had fallen by 11% .

Overall, the pair estimated that readers now spend about 75% less time reading the title online than they did when it was in print and on the web. My suspicion is that the Independent would go the same way. In the near term future at least, these publications could wither - that said, I think it is too early to tell.

Whatever happens could well happen very quickly and I am guessing that the Independent has little future as a standalone publication.

Follow me on Twitter

Free lunch is over says The Economist as Indy talks charging

255762 — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 09:47:00 GMT

In an editorial today The Economist joins the growing chatter that says the days of (entirely) free content are over. It does so as The Independent and The Times are revealed to be looking seriously at paid-for content.

In a piece titled 'The end of the free lunch', The Economist gives us this:

"In recent years, consumers have become used to feasting on online freebies of all sorts: news, share quotes, music, email and even speedy internet access. These days, however, dotcoms are not making news with yet more free offerings, but with layoffs and with announcements that they are to start charging for their services."

It seems, almost, to be describing the current situation, but then comes the punch line: that was printed in The Economist back in April 2001, but it is entirely applicable to where we are today.

Giving away content in the hope that advertising revenue will materialise later on has been hugely appealing to all, not least to users who have enjoyed free services. But as The Economist point out, with not enough advertising revenue to go around, the lessons of two internet bubbles have taught us that "somebody somewhere is going to have to pick up the tab for lunch".

The paper concludes that the demise of a popular but unsustainable business model (of free content) now seems inevitable.

Time Inc has mooted charging as has The New York Times and the Guardian seems as keen as anyone. It is also being reported that newspapers including The Times and Independent are considering introducing paid-for content on their sites.

It will only take one or two, a little trickle, before it turns into a steady flow. In just a few short weeks the language has already started to rapidly change. As journalists lose their jobs and newspapers are threatened there has been a step change.

Gavin O'Reilly, the new chief executive of Independent News & Media told the Daily Telegraph that "it is obviously necessary".

No longer simply desirable or nice – but necessary. He added: "We have got to respect the value of our writers. There is a fine balance. I want to look at online in that regard."

The paper also reported that News International was looking to find its own paid-for model.

What will that be? People talk micro payments and subscription.

What I am completely convinced of is that no one in the wider world, outside of the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, will be successfully able to charge for news.

News was and is even more so today a commodity. Valuable as it is, it is also too cheap and too easy to replicate to be charged for – except maybe in a historical archive – but increasingly I think that ship has also sailed.

It is the other content - the words, the insight, video and audio that cannot be replicated that demands some kind of premium price tag.

Other recent posts of the US newspaper crises

Follow me on Twitter

Would you buy a failing newspaper?

255762 — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:54:00 GMT

Serious question as there is more talk about saving US newspapers and turning some of them into non-profit foundations. Staff at the San Francisco Chronicle are talking of a foundation bid for the paper (sort of like the Guardian) in an effort to save it with names like Craig Newmark floated as buyers/investors.

News of the San Francisco Chronicle follows similar talk earlier this week from philanthropist Eli Broad about the Los Angeles Times, whose owner Tribune is in trouble.

Broad said that the US can't afford to lose good newspaper journalism, but added a caveat which was that he wasn't sure that the Los Angeles Times could "be a national paper, or have the same aspirations it once had".

Basically Broad is talking about reduced circumstances. About once great newspapers no longer being so great; local rather than national, which will certainly be the case with the Chronicle or any other paper that someone tried to save.

Broad also said (and it is a stumbling block for all) that "no one has figured out a good business model as of yet. Newspapers ought to be owned by foundations, not look for great financial returns. If several foundations are involved there is likely to be journalistic freedom".

Let's face it, the same thing could happen in the UK to the Independent. You could imagine people trying (and sadly failing) to save it in the not too distant future.

The Indy of all papers is in serious trouble. Sales of the Independent News & Media title were down 18.41% year on year to around 205,964 copies,

San Francisco Chronicle journalists are trying to talk investors into buying the foundering daily newspaper and restructuring it as a non-profit, according to the SF Appeal.

Apparently journalists would invest some of their own cash, a California Media Workers Guild representative at the San Francisco Chronicle told the Appeal, but even after a heavy write down from Hearst's 2000 price of $660m they would need some serious money.

Gawker took at guess at who might buy the paper:

Old San Francisco money: if anyone is going to put cash into a hemorrhaging newspaper it is local billionaires.

New dotcom money: Seems a long shot, but maybe in a crazy moment of retroness those rich Google types might go for it. Maybe not.

Craig Newmark: is another the gossip site raises. The San Francisco-based Craigslist founder is a bit more altruistic than many of his Web 2.0 generation. Besides, with Craigslist he helped kill the newspaper market, so let's face it he owes them. But even with his many millions he would need help from fellow multi millionaires. Craigslist makes around $100m a year, but the Chronicle is losing $50m.

Maybe predictably Gawker concluded that the outcome is more likely to be "it makes little sense to invest in fixing the old problems of a dying industry when you can net much more glory or profit starting from scratch".

But who would enter a dying industry from scratch when the problem appears to have been is in the basic maths?

Follow me on Twitter

Daily Mirror as a free sheet?

255762 — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:35:00 GMT

Piers Morgan has a plan for the survival of the Daily Mirror: make it a freesheet.

Writing in the British Journalism Review Morgan says that every national newspaper will be free within 10 years and that the Daily Mirror should be the first.

Sounds radical doesn't it? But with the Daily Mirror's sales continuing to steadily fall away (1.42m in October down 1.48% for the month) it could happen.

Former Mirror editor Morgan argues that Trinity Mirror chief executive Sly Bailey needs to make the radical decision before The Sun beats it to the punch.

"I would make the Daily Mirror free tomorrow, because I don't see any future for it otherwise. If The Sun were to go free tomorrow it would kill the Mirror. It's a horrific position to be in and I'm sure that if Sly Bailey could find a buyer at the right price she'd sell the national titles like a shot."

I'm pretty sure that Bailey has more than a little time to play with. 1.42m is still a big pile of newspapers and the Sun won't be going free any time soon.

It seems likely if any paper will be first to go free it will be the Evening Standard, which continues to face a costly battle against the London freesheet newspapers.

The Evening Standard's circulation might have jumped above 300,000 for the first time in four months in October, but bulks make up more than 40% of its circulation.

Just how much longer can Associated continue to poor money into producing two London evening newspapers? It has already shed staff and stories are shared with London Lite as it battles News International's Thelondonpaper.

As media jobs are cut left right and centre, advertising dries up, it seems highly unlikely that London can continue to sustain three evening newspapers.

I'm convinced that the next seismic shift in British newspapers will come in that market (unless the Independent suddenly gets sold by Independent News & Media to the Daily Mail & General Trust).

Hat tip Press Gazette

Follow me on Twitter