Financial matters

[DaveR]

Interesting article about the future of the Guardian:

"The announcement by Guardian Media Group that it is to adopt a digital-first strategy has engendered a mixture of concern, incredulity, hostility and cynicism while fostering a widespread belief that the game is up for the Guardian and its Sunday stablemate, the Observer."

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/markets/article-23963174-loss-making-guardian-risks-all-on-digital-first.do

[Ian]

National newsprint media are all in trouble - very similar to the state of ITV, with losses in advertising revenue mounting daily.  I'll be surprised if we don't lost at least three national papers by the time the economy recovers. The big problem is that the Murdochs will simply plough their own vast fortunes into maintaining loss making papers, and we could be left only with their titles at the end. Then what price a free press?

[DaveR]

GMG's problem stem more from poor management and complacency, I feel. GMG lost £30m on its newspaper operations, whilst the Daily Telegraph recorded a £59m profit. Even in these uncertain times, a well managed newspaper can obviously still deliver a decent profit.

As an aside, ITV's fortunes have recovered sharply since their nadir a couple of years ago, with a profit of £286m for FY 2010.

[Ian]

Yet ITV's earning were massively higher in days of yore. It's a tricky business, making papers sell these days. DT was helped by their MPs' expenses story, of course. ITV simply closed down programmes left, right and centre.  Yorkshire TV exists only in name these days, and that's a shame.

[Merddin Emrys]

I only buy one newspaper on Saturday and that's mainly to get the tv guide, we get the free local Pioneer, once in a blue moon I may get the North Wales Weekly News. I find most local stories on here first! I think the days of newspapers are coming to an end as I watch the BBC Breakfast news in the morning and all news is on the internet for free!  I don't know how typical I am?

[DaveR]

I only buy one newspaper on Saturday and that's mainly to get the tv guide, we get the free local Pioneer, once in a blue moon I may get the North Wales Weekly News. I find most local stories on here first! I think the days of newspapers are coming to an end as I watch the BBC Breakfast news in the morning and all news is on the internet for free!  I don't know how typical I am?

Question - would you buy the Weekly News every week if it was, say, only 20p?

I note that the front page story in the Pioneer this week was taken from this forum and Oscar Jnr's blog. I think the Weekly News is foolish to publish full stories for free online, they should just publish the first paragraph as a teaser and then direct people to either buy the paper or maybe pay a small sum to access all their stories online.

[DaveR]

Big cutbacks at HMRC:

"THE axe is hanging over 540 tax office jobs after HM Revenue & Custom (HMRC) confirmed only one site in Wales is guaranteed to remain open by 2020.

Wrexham tax office with 444 staff; Colwyn Bay with 69 and Porthmadog with 27 have been given no such assurance as HMRC looks to make yet more efficiency savings in the wake of government spending cuts.

The revenue service confirmed to staff last week that its Cardiff base was one of just 16 sites across the UK with a long term future as part of its “People and Offices Plan” review."
http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/2011/06/24/540-north-wales-hmrc-jobs-under-threat-55578-28932692/

 

[Merddin Emrys]

[Question - would you buy the Weekly News every week if it was, say, only 20p?

Yes

[DaveR]

[Question - would you buy the Weekly News every week if it was, say, only 20p?

Yes

That's very interesting. That's the approach I take with a daily paper - something like the Times or Telegraph is a £1 and you generally stop to think if you really want to spend a pound on a paper. But with the i newspaper, it's only 20p and I just pick it up without even thinking about it...because it's only 20p!

I wonder if a similar approach would work with the Weekly News? Cut the price to 20p or 30p, increase the print run to 30,000 (it sells about 13,000 at present) and try to boost news content by making more use of (reliable) people generated content. At the same time, develop a standalone website containing all the stories (first paragraph only) with the user having to pay a small sum to view the full stories and they would also gain access to the complete archive of stories and photos going back to the start of the paper. The boost in circulation should enable ad rates to be lifted and new advertisers to be lured in.

[Merddin Emrys]

The other problem with the Weekly news is the different versions for different adjacent areas, surely it could be just one, we live between Llandudno and Colwyn Bay and I want to see both areas, If the Pioneer (not that good really) can be free (excellent value) Then the Weekly News is far to expensive for what it is at 75p

[DaveR]

That's a good point. I tend to use the website to look for the stories in the other areas covered, that don't appear in the local edition.

[Merddin Emrys]

Which brings us back to the point 'why buy it if you can see it on the internet?'  

This morning I was going to buy the copy with this story on the front cover about the bogus dog warden

http://www.northwalesweeklynews.co.uk/conwy-county-news/local-conwy-news/2011/06/23/conwy-council-s-warning-over-bogus-dog-warden-55243-28924759/

The chap in the shop said 'it's not the Llandudno edition' so I bought the 'right' edition and the story is not in it  :rage:
Surely it would be far easier to have one edition?

[SDQ]

They should do one issue with a section inside for each region so we can all read about what's happening around the area.

[DaveR]

They should do one issue with a section inside for each region so we can all read about what's happening around the area.

Defiinitely. 

[Merddin Emrys]

   I'm sure it would be easier and more economic for them to publish and distribute one copy and shops would only need one space for it. Really I consider this to be all one area newswise.