It was interesting to read on the back of Saturday’s post…
http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=135
… a line in Stephen Brook’s piece today re the latest axe to be applied to Trinity’s stable of weekly titles; this time in North Wales and the North-West…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/sep/09/trinitymirror.downturn
In particular, this bit…
“A source said the company would have to invest £30m in new presses in Liverpool, but by transferring printing to Oldham it would spend £7.5m on an upgrade….
Which then tied in with this line re Archant’s impending dilemma with their Suffolk operation; at what point do you decide that, in the current climate, it’s an upgrade too far… and the better economy is to be found centralising your print operation in one building? Albeit a county away from your ‘evening’ readership.
“It’s exactly the same argument that’s going to face Archant, if and when they decide not replace the ageing print press beneath their Brook Street offices in Ipswich; print the Ipswich ‘Evening’ Star 40-odd miles up the road in Norwich and you’re at the mercy of the single-lane A140 every day…
It would be churlish in the extreme to question the commercial logic to either decision; each and every one of us has to do what it takes to survive; we’ve retreated back up the A12 this month with the mothballing of our Colchester site. That’s the harsh realities of life kicking in.
But when it comes to printing and ferrying a paper product up and down the highways and by-ways of East Anglia and the streets and terraces of Bootle and Toxteth, removing yourself to a print centre 40 miles away has big implications for the distribution of your core newspaper product.
Either the deadline is shifted an hour earlier. Or it arrives at the newsagents and street vendors an hour late. That’s not rocket science; that’s simple geography working against your best commercial intentions.
As for the latest batch of weekly closures – and there will be more in the Midlands if they fail to find a buyer for any of their half a dozen weeklies that-away…
http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=126
… it once again prompts an urgent consideration of how local news needs are going to be best served going forward.
And I’m not wholly sure that suggesting the communities needs are better served now that the axeman has cometh is altogether correct, either.
“Sara Wilde, the Trinity Mirror North West regional managing director, said: “I believe these changes will strengthen the power of our products in their marketplaces and meet both the needs of advertisers and readers in the face of challenging market conditions.”
The ‘challenging’ bit is spot on, mind.
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I am detached from this collapsing pack of cards only because I am in the UAE, where there is still a will – and, of course, the resources – to invest in newspapers if the newspapers seem worth investing in.
In UK terms, isn’t it all just a question of how to manage decline? It has been a great industry, great to work in at times and great for millions of readers (as well as appalling, sometimes, in each case), but the maths are loaded against it. I remain heartened that so many national dailies, for example, survive even if some of them have scant justification, on any test of quality, for doing so. But the regional press seems to be heading more relentlessly into the abyss. One friend fears his own paper, an institution in its own way and place, may not much outlive his own retirement, and that is only two or three years away.