Johnny Plunkett – like Lewis Wiltshire, see below – is ex-Archant; ex-Evening News in Mr P’s case; ex-news reporter with my Mrs; the ‘bigger paper’ that he mentioned to Mr Scully was the thundering organ that once was the Norwich Evening News…
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/2008/08/northern_echo_scores_with_real.html
Hence the fact that I always tend to keep an eye on what he’s thinking and writing on MediaGuardian…
And the above piece is interesting; very interesting – in that it starts to drive towards where we were getting too with the ‘Being the best of the seconds…’ post upon which Lewis kindly commented on.
http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=131#comments
Because, start to put the two posts together, and you might – just – start to get where we’re thinking of heading…
The line that stands out from John’s piece has little or nothing to do with the Northern Echo’s brilliant response to their fun and games with the Hartlepool chairman and Co…
The word to concentrate on is the one at the heart of their original fall-out – the word ‘commercial’.
“The Echo was one of two papers to be banned by the Hartlepool club. First the Hartlepool Mail was shown the red card after it refused to sign a commercial agreement with the club.
“Then the Echo was barred after it deigned to supply photos and manager’s quotes to the Mail. Double trouble…
OK; I’m clearly not privvy to the conversations that were had; all I know is that the Pool chairman was prickly customer when it came to the Canaries prising their first team coach, Paul Stephenson, out of their grasp last season.
Bottom line? I suspect he’s a hard-nosed northern business-man who’s nobody’s fool; and guards everything that he deems of ‘worth’ to that football club with a vengeance – be it either the services of his then youth team coach – or, more importanly, in this context ‘his’ news.
That’s one, fundamental point that virtually all the subsequent commenters have failed to take on board. As soon as Hartlepool United – albeit via The FLi/PremiumTV network of official club websites – found themselves with a digital platform onto the Web they became a rival media organisation to the Echo, the Mail, the BBC, to us all…
And, brilliantly, they began to realise that not only did they now own a news organisation, they owned a news organisation that produced its own news…
That every time they signed a new player, you could read about it first on their website; that every time that new player spoke, you could read about it first on their website… and, you know what, you could then sign people up to an SMS text alert service via which they could then hear it even faster, first.
No more waiting for the Mail’s paper-boy to show. Here it was; straight into the palm of their hand; from the football club.
Wherever they were. They would be the first with the club’s news. The storm-troopers of the messageboard news-breakers… and all for £3.99 per month.
But that’s the point… first with the club’s news. Not the Mail’s; not the Echo’s… we were all left, by and large, trying to prove the best of the seconds as we re-served our dwindling audiences with someone else’s news.
Put that on the background of ever-increasing recessionary pressures; the lack of pennies at any Football League club and the Hartlepool chairman has clearly taken a more robust line this season about giving the two local newspapers free and easy access to ‘his’ news.
Fair enough, but how about taking out an exec box this season… take your best advertisers to a home game… £3,500 plus VAT a season. Or whatever. An advertsing hoarding, same place as last season?
So that will be the ‘conversation’ from his side of the fence… Now put yourself in the shoes of the Northern Echo execs tring to come to a ‘commercial’ understanding with their local football club given their own intense structural and cyclical pressures.
That exec box, for example… traditionally, of course, that was where the ad dept wined and dined your big estate agents, the owners of the local garage deadlerships, the town’s big employers with all their job ads…
Right now, that particular business community has – you suspect – more on their mind than an afternoon at the footie with an Echo ad man trying to persuade him the benefits of a £750 quater page ad on a Friday night. So – and I’m guessing; slightly having had similar conversations of late – along with every other local media organisation that’s hacking back on every cost that moves, the benefits of having a box for 12 at the Victoria Ground will be, er, nil to the number crunchers and suits trying to save the Echo from an early grave…
OK, no box, no regular – and free – access to our news, will be the thoughts from the other side of the football club fence. Hence the fall-out…
‘The local papers will be there long after the football club chairman goes…’
Yeh? Want a bet?
‘The club sponsors will want to see their logo in the local newspaper… ‘
Perhaps. But what if they’re getting all the exposure they want via the club’s own official site, a young, vibrant digital audience that grows and grows traffic-wise as the local newspaper – in its dead-tree guise – continues to wither and die? Demographically, where’s my 18-30-year-old brand better served? On the web or on the back of a local evening paper, average readership age..?
These are the kind of debates that are happening right now; I’ve had them. This summer. As have 101 other local media organisations whose whole commercial relationship with the biggest – and most reliable – supplier of local news in provincial towns and cities across the UK and beyond is changing beyond all recognition. Particularly in such credit-crunched days as these.
There are two tenets of thought that we have steadfastly tried to cling to over the last two years on MyFootballWriter. And, indeed, expand on.
One is the first, seminal moment on my road to web Damascus… the simplest thought of all from Mr Shirky. All people want is a good read… just not on a newspaper…
The second is, for me, Jeff Jarvis’ greatest legacy. I don’t do WWGD; for me, that’s – ad-wise – always been more a case of WTFDGD? This, however, I do with bells and knobs on…
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/02/22/new-rule-cover-what-you-do-best-link-to-the-rest/
New rule. Cover what you do best – link to the rest.
Right. What do traditional football [bracket sports] reporters do best? Comment, analysis, background and colour. They write a good read. Thereafter, link to the rest.
I can sit at my kitchen table and write this…
‘Don’t expect any easy ride this weekend was the warning from Pools boss Danny Wilson today, as he geared his troops up for a tough test against League One big-spenders Peterborough United.
‘The two teams have a win apiece this season and are locked togther in the middle of the early League One table, but today’s trip to London Road is likely to be a stiff test for Wilson and Co as they look to avoid crashing back to earth with a nasty bang after their mid-week Carling Cup success over Premiership new-boys West Bromwich Albion.
“This is a good test of character for us because we want to repeat what we’ve just done in midweek,” Wilson told the club’s official site, http://www.hartlepoolunited.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10326~1378307,00.html
‘It certainly will be. Posh have bolstered their back-to-back promotion hopes with several big signings this summer, blah, blah, blah…
Readable by your average Pools fan? Probably. The average Pools fan will have already read Wilson’s comments ‘first’; they’ll read everything on the official site first. All they’re looking for then is the people who offer the best read, second.
I can do that. The Echo’s Hartlepool football writer Paul Fraser can do it even better.
He has an existing digital audience. And a ticket to the game. Job done.
All very interesting. Very interesting.
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