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Telephone: +044 01275 390 552
SOUTH WEST MEDIA CHANGES
1. THE BACKGROUND
For the past three years (ie, long before the credit-crunch, banking crisis, and recession), the world‘s “traditional” news media have been struggling with the challenges of:
How to monetise their online content, with everyone having become increasingly used to getting news “free” from such online sources as:
o Newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters‘ own websites;
o News assembly websites;
o Online news-capture (eg, Google Alerts);
o Mobile phone news services;
o Etc.
How to cope with a declining share of available advertising budgets, as the share of ad-spending with online media increases every year;
How to cope with declining sales of print-media and declining audiences for TV and radio, as younger people are not reading newspapers or magazines – or using TV or radio for news: an entire generation now expects to get its news online and for free;
How to find a new business model for their traditional products, and how to find a profitable way of joining the online tsunami.
All of these challenges have been hugely increased by the effects of the recession.
The result, so far, has been a prolonged and continuing process of cost-cutting, involving thousands of jobs, the closing of publications, the shift from daily to weekly for some titles, the reduction in editorial pages etc. The other half of the process involves moves into online revenue streams (eg, having seen their core-advertising revenues for job-adverts, houses for sale, and cars for sale migrating to online sites, newspaper publishers have spent £millions to buy those online websites). Similarly, ITV took a similar path (eg, buying Friends Reunited to get their hands on the website‘s membership database).
The process continues.
2. MEDIA CHANGES IN THE SOUTH WEST
Until now, the seven-counties South West region has, in effect, been two media regions:
“The Westcountry”:
" The West of England”:
That is now changing, with major media-groups recognising the efficiency-savings of treating the South West as one region.
i. Print media
Northcliffe Media has a near-monopoly in the South West, owning every daily newspaper in the region (other than the Swindon Advertiser), and many of the most influential weekly newspapers, including the West Briton in Truro.
For the moment, Northcliffe operates separate companies (each with its own Managing Director and Editor in Chief) for each of their South West clusters:
Bristol News & Media:
o Western Daily Press
o Bristol Evening Post
o Bath Chronicle
o Various weeklies (eg, Clevedon Mercury)
Gloucestershire Media:
o Gloucester Citizen
o Gloucestershire Evening Echo
o Various weeklies:
Westcountry News & Media:
o Western Morning News
o Evening titles in Plymouth, Exeter, and Torquy
o Various weeklies throughout Devon & Cornwall
These operations have already made major changes and cuts:
The Western Daily Press and Western Morning News are, effectively, merged – sharing some core content, sharing an editor (Alan Qualtrough), and sharing a Business Editor (Liz Parks) – both based at the Western Morning News.
There is “good news” from this development: while the WDP now has a skeleton editorial team and had abandoned the “Business Week” supplement, it now shares the WMN Thursday multi-page business and commercial property section;
The ‘Evening Post now shares content with the WDP and has revived the recently abandoned the “Business Post” weekly supplement;
The Bath Chronicle has moved from daily to weekly.
None of Northcliffe‘s South West newspapers are now printed in this region: they have already closed the Bristol printing plant and are now closing the Plymouth operation. All of their South West newspapers are now printed outside the region.
There is an over-arching dimension: Northcliffe Media South West & Wales (MD is Steve Anderson-Dixon), is driving these plans that will, I suspect, see further changes, including a greater move to break down local barriers and adopt a more regionwide approach (hence the closure of local South West printing operations).
This move has already created South West Business – a monthly regionwide business magazine, website, and daily free news e-bulletin.
This magazine, website, and daily bulletin are now edited by Andy Merrell (formerly, business editor of the Gloucester Citizen). The former editor (Mike Ribbeck) is now focused on the business pages at the Bristol Evening Post.
That magazine, website, and daily news-feed was created to compete with Insider South West, which is edited by Christian Annesley (who has now recruited a deputy editor). Insider has introduced to this region the successful formula they operate in Scotland, the Midlands, and Wales (monthly magazine, weekly e-bulletin, a programme of business events, and annual awards for deals and commercial property).
ii. Broadcast media
It is a similar story for TV and radio in the South West.
a. TV:
Nationally, ITV has revealed its intention to end regional news-coverage by 2012. Already, they have combined the former news operations of the former HTV and Westcountry TV. Meanwhile, bids were being submitted to the Labour government by consortia (including Northcliffe) to deliver regional TV news in competition with the BBC: this formula is now being changed by the new coalition government, which seems to be more focused on encouraging local TV services, rather than regional news provision – and making it easier for companies like Northcliffe to own local TV and radio stations.
This could free the BBC, also facing severe funding issues, to reconsider its twin-operations in the South West (Bristol and Plymouth). While the BBC currently retains business correspondents (eg, Dave Harvey has replaced Malcolm Frith at BBC West), ITV has not replaced Bob Constantine (who now has a probably short-term contract as political correspondent for the entire South West).
b. Radio
There has been a massive change in ownership of the South West‘s commercial radio stations, most of which have struggled with declining advertising revenues during the recession, but are now beginning to see some recovery.
The BBC‘s local radio stations in the region are also under funding-pressure, so there is a move to increase regionwide programming. A key element of the BBC offering is its huge dominance of online news-delivery – including local/regional delivery.
For businesses, local radio stations provide a strong opportunity in the “drive-time” slots (morning and evening), when many of the firm‘s target audience are tuned-in to get commuter-travel information.
iii. Online media
This is the big growth area – throughout the world. We already arrange for, and monitor, our clients‘ releases to be distributed to online media, including the online services of the region‘s newspapers, South West Business, etc.
People under 30 are not buying or reading newspapers – they are using free online news services, just as they are using free online services for their car, home, or job-searches.
In addition to the online offerings for every regional newspaper and magazine, there is a new “boom” in hyper-local websites (eg, Northcliffe has invested £ millions in making the South West its national trial region for a raft of new hyper-local sites – like www.cliftonpeople.co.uk).
Independent providers are also generating local news-sites (like the superb www.burnham-on-sea.com and www.bristol247.com , which are building business coverage).
There is also the growth of regional and sub-regional online outlets (eg, Business Cornwall)
A key element of the online revolution is that business and professional firms can generate their own online communications!
3. WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN FOR YOU?
i. There is now a change in news-print media opportunities:
o You need to focus more on feature and thought-leadership articles, than on simple news-stories;
o There is more space to fill, so more opportunities;
o Northcliffe‘s newspapers are now even more focused (like Insider) on paid-for content…..so you need to deliver strong stories and thought-leadership articles to avoid the need for buying space – eg, delivering page 10/12 opinion-articles.
ii. Online activity will become ever-more important. We already issue all our clients‘ stories to online and digital media, and via Twitter: professional firms need to develop their use of LinkedIn, enabling us to populate their networks with news content.
iii. We all need to direct more attention towards drive-time slots on local radio (which means generating radio-friendly stories, and having people prepared to do radio interviews).
1. THE BACKGROUND
For the past three years (ie, long before the credit-crunch, banking crisis, and recession), the world‘s “traditional” news media have been struggling with the challenges of:
How to monetise their online content, with everyone having become increasingly used to getting news “free” from such online sources as:
o Newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters‘ own websites;
o News assembly websites;
o Online news-capture (eg, Google Alerts);
o Mobile phone news services;
o Etc.
How to cope with a declining share of available advertising budgets, as the share of ad-spending with online media increases every year;
How to cope with declining sales of print-media and declining audiences for TV and radio, as younger people are not reading newspapers or magazines – or using TV or radio for news: an entire generation now expects to get its news online and for free;
How to find a new business model for their traditional products, and how to find a profitable way of joining the online tsunami.
All of these challenges have been hugely increased by the effects of the recession.
The result, so far, has been a prolonged and continuing process of cost-cutting, involving thousands of jobs, the closing of publications, the shift from daily to weekly for some titles, the reduction in editorial pages etc. The other half of the process involves moves into online revenue streams (eg, having seen their core-advertising revenues for job-adverts, houses for sale, and cars for sale migrating to online sites, newspaper publishers have spent £millions to buy those online websites). Similarly, ITV took a similar path (eg, buying Friends Reunited to get their hands on the website‘s membership database).
The process continues.
2. MEDIA CHANGES IN THE SOUTH WEST
Until now, the seven-counties South West region has, in effect, been two media regions:
“The Westcountry”:
- Devon, Cornwall, South Somerset, etc;
- Plymouth as the media-hub:
- Western Morning News
- BBC TV South West
- ITV Westcountry.
" The West of England”:
- Avon, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and North Somerset; o Bristol as the media-hub:
- Western Daily Press
- BBC TV West
- ITV West.
That is now changing, with major media-groups recognising the efficiency-savings of treating the South West as one region.
i. Print media
Northcliffe Media has a near-monopoly in the South West, owning every daily newspaper in the region (other than the Swindon Advertiser), and many of the most influential weekly newspapers, including the West Briton in Truro.
For the moment, Northcliffe operates separate companies (each with its own Managing Director and Editor in Chief) for each of their South West clusters:
Bristol News & Media:
o Western Daily Press
o Bristol Evening Post
o Bath Chronicle
o Various weeklies (eg, Clevedon Mercury)
Gloucestershire Media:
o Gloucester Citizen
o Gloucestershire Evening Echo
o Various weeklies:
Westcountry News & Media:
o Western Morning News
o Evening titles in Plymouth, Exeter, and Torquy
o Various weeklies throughout Devon & Cornwall
These operations have already made major changes and cuts:
The Western Daily Press and Western Morning News are, effectively, merged – sharing some core content, sharing an editor (Alan Qualtrough), and sharing a Business Editor (Liz Parks) – both based at the Western Morning News.
There is “good news” from this development: while the WDP now has a skeleton editorial team and had abandoned the “Business Week” supplement, it now shares the WMN Thursday multi-page business and commercial property section;
The ‘Evening Post now shares content with the WDP and has revived the recently abandoned the “Business Post” weekly supplement;
The Bath Chronicle has moved from daily to weekly.
None of Northcliffe‘s South West newspapers are now printed in this region: they have already closed the Bristol printing plant and are now closing the Plymouth operation. All of their South West newspapers are now printed outside the region.
There is an over-arching dimension: Northcliffe Media South West & Wales (MD is Steve Anderson-Dixon), is driving these plans that will, I suspect, see further changes, including a greater move to break down local barriers and adopt a more regionwide approach (hence the closure of local South West printing operations).
This move has already created South West Business – a monthly regionwide business magazine, website, and daily free news e-bulletin.
This magazine, website, and daily bulletin are now edited by Andy Merrell (formerly, business editor of the Gloucester Citizen). The former editor (Mike Ribbeck) is now focused on the business pages at the Bristol Evening Post.
That magazine, website, and daily news-feed was created to compete with Insider South West, which is edited by Christian Annesley (who has now recruited a deputy editor). Insider has introduced to this region the successful formula they operate in Scotland, the Midlands, and Wales (monthly magazine, weekly e-bulletin, a programme of business events, and annual awards for deals and commercial property).
ii. Broadcast media
It is a similar story for TV and radio in the South West.
a. TV:
Nationally, ITV has revealed its intention to end regional news-coverage by 2012. Already, they have combined the former news operations of the former HTV and Westcountry TV. Meanwhile, bids were being submitted to the Labour government by consortia (including Northcliffe) to deliver regional TV news in competition with the BBC: this formula is now being changed by the new coalition government, which seems to be more focused on encouraging local TV services, rather than regional news provision – and making it easier for companies like Northcliffe to own local TV and radio stations.
This could free the BBC, also facing severe funding issues, to reconsider its twin-operations in the South West (Bristol and Plymouth). While the BBC currently retains business correspondents (eg, Dave Harvey has replaced Malcolm Frith at BBC West), ITV has not replaced Bob Constantine (who now has a probably short-term contract as political correspondent for the entire South West).
b. Radio
There has been a massive change in ownership of the South West‘s commercial radio stations, most of which have struggled with declining advertising revenues during the recession, but are now beginning to see some recovery.
The BBC‘s local radio stations in the region are also under funding-pressure, so there is a move to increase regionwide programming. A key element of the BBC offering is its huge dominance of online news-delivery – including local/regional delivery.
For businesses, local radio stations provide a strong opportunity in the “drive-time” slots (morning and evening), when many of the firm‘s target audience are tuned-in to get commuter-travel information.
iii. Online media
This is the big growth area – throughout the world. We already arrange for, and monitor, our clients‘ releases to be distributed to online media, including the online services of the region‘s newspapers, South West Business, etc.
People under 30 are not buying or reading newspapers – they are using free online news services, just as they are using free online services for their car, home, or job-searches.
In addition to the online offerings for every regional newspaper and magazine, there is a new “boom” in hyper-local websites (eg, Northcliffe has invested £ millions in making the South West its national trial region for a raft of new hyper-local sites – like www.cliftonpeople.co.uk).
Independent providers are also generating local news-sites (like the superb www.burnham-on-sea.com and www.bristol247.com , which are building business coverage).
There is also the growth of regional and sub-regional online outlets (eg, Business Cornwall)
A key element of the online revolution is that business and professional firms can generate their own online communications!
3. WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN FOR YOU?
i. There is now a change in news-print media opportunities:
o You need to focus more on feature and thought-leadership articles, than on simple news-stories;
o There is more space to fill, so more opportunities;
o Northcliffe‘s newspapers are now even more focused (like Insider) on paid-for content…..so you need to deliver strong stories and thought-leadership articles to avoid the need for buying space – eg, delivering page 10/12 opinion-articles.
ii. Online activity will become ever-more important. We already issue all our clients‘ stories to online and digital media, and via Twitter: professional firms need to develop their use of LinkedIn, enabling us to populate their networks with news content.
iii. We all need to direct more attention towards drive-time slots on local radio (which means generating radio-friendly stories, and having people prepared to do radio interviews).