BBC/Milne Media: More than 100 jobs at risk in Scotsman print move

More than 100 jobs could go at Scotsman Publications’ Edinburgh printing plant as owners Johnston Press have decided to move operations to its Glasgow base.

The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday will no be printed at the Cardonald print works in Glasgow, owned by Trinity Mirror, while 40 other titles will be printed in Sunderland.

Full story at this link…

More background on the move at Milne Media.

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Johnston Press’ ad revenues feel effects of recession

Johnston Press has today reported half-year revenues of £218.6 million – down 25.4 per cent year-on-year.

Print advertising revenue fell by 33.5 per cent; while digital advertising revenues also declined – by 18.8 per cent.

The publisher’s revenue from employment advertising was down by 53.8 per cent, property ads by 54.2 per cent, motors by 29.3 per cent and from other classifieds by 11.5 per cent.

The company’s interim report said ad revenues were down 32.7 per cent in the first six months of 2009 compared with the same period in 2008.

In an attempt to improve their digital recruitment sites and therefore their appeal to recruitment advertisers, Johnston Press has entered into a joint venture with Daily Mail & General Trust, giving them access to the latter’s Jobsite software.

The report also expresses the group’s struggle ‘to compete with the regional activities of the publicly funded BBC digital presence’, claiming that it ‘distorts the markets within which they operate through making the charging for news content extremely difficult’.

“The timing of the economic upturn remains uncertain but advertising revenues are demonstrating greater stability
and we expect the cyclical improvement when it comes to more than compensate any structural change. We will
maintain our focus on costs and look to secure operating efficiencies during the second half of the year,” said CEO John Fry in the report.

Yesterday the publisher celebrated success after it was announced that it had attracted the most unique users, to its network of regional newspaper websites, in the first six months of 2009.

The publisher, which is responsible for more than 323 websites, recorded 6,864,820 monthly unique users on average over the period, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic’s six-monthly report for regional newspaper groups.

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Johnston Press at centre of bid speculation but denies ‘any disposal process underway’ for the Scotsman

Yesterday, the Sunday Times reported that a ‘consortium of Scottish businessmen is trying to buy The Scotsman newspaper from the debt-laden Johnston Press’. It claimed:

“Martin Gilbert, the chief executive of Aberdeen Asset Management, has joined forces with Edinburgh financier Ben Thomson and property developer Mark Shaw to acquire the daily.

“Talks have taken place in recent weeks but the two sides are believed to be a long way apart on price. Industry sources say Johnston is holding out for about £40m for The Scotsman, which it bought from the Barclay brothers for £160m in 2005.

(…)

“Sources close to Johnston confirmed an informal approach for the division, which includes Scotland on Sunday and the Edinburgh Evening News, but said there were no plans for a formal sale.”

Also of note is the claim that JP is in discussions with Newsquest, publisher of rival The Herald, ‘about a joint venture to pool resources. Previous attempts to merge the titles were blocked by politicians’.

AllMediaScotland links to the claims here and Shaun Milne comments here.

Like allmediascotland, Journalism.co.uk has received this statement from Johnston Press:

“Johnston Press notes the press speculation regarding the potential disposal of the Scotsman.

“Whilst Company policy is not to comment on such speculation, Johnston Press can confirm that the board does not have any disposal process underway in this regard.”

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NUJ Release: Journalists thank the people of West Yorkshire

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) reports that journalists were due to hand out thank you letters to the people of West Yorkshire today.

“NUJ members from the Yorkshire Post, Yorkshire Evening Post and Leeds Weekly News want to show their appreciation for the support they received during thirteen days of strike action over compulsory redundancies.”

Full release at this link…

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NUJ Release: Johnston Press strikers go south

Full release at this link…

Also, a photograph of the protest over at Jon Slattery’s blog.

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Reuters: ‘Johnston Press 2009 ad revenues slump 36 per cent’

“British regional newspaper group Johnston Press axed its final 2008 dividend on Wednesday after saying its advertising revenues in 2009 to date were down 36 per cent,” Reuters reports.

“The group, which has been especially hard hit by its high exposure to local classified advertising and sectors such as employment, housing and motoring, posted 2008 results in line with forecasts, with operating profit down 28 per cent.”

Full story at this link…

and another report from MediaGuardian at this link.

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NUJ release: Yorkshire Johnston Press journalists to ballot for strike action

Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post will enter ballot over strike action after Johnston Press announcement of redundancies.

Read the full NUJ release at this link…

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TimesOnline: Interview with outgoing Johnston chief Tim Bowdler

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Tracking UK newspaper share prices with Twitter

With a little a lot of help from our friends (take a bow Headshift’s Tim Duckett) there’s a new Twitter kid on the block – @jocoukshares.

Following Trinity Mirror and Johnston Press’ exits from the FTSE 250, the aim is to provide almost real-time share price information for the newspaper and magazine publishing groups currently listed on the FTSE.

Below is a key to the company names:

FUTR – Future Publishing

CAU – Centaur

TNI – Trinity Mirror

INM – Independent News & Media

REL – Reed Elsevier

PSON – Pearson

JPR – Johnston Press

DMGT – Daily Mail & General Trust

INF – Informa

NWS – News Corp

Tim’s made stirling progress with setting up feeds of the share prices to Twitter and there’s no reason why this couldn’t be expanded beyond newspapers and mags in the future.

However, suggestions about a ‘front-end’ for the project are welcome. Building a newspaper-share-price-feed-tracking widget will probably be one of my Christmas Eve tasks – any suggestions?

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Local newspaper sees high traffic for online memorial

By creating an online version of the newspaper’s announcements page, the Limerick Leader has made its site the ‘focal point for entire community’s grieving,’ a press release from iAnnounce, the company which developed the page, said.

More than 17,600 people have now visited the Limerick Leader’s iAnnounce page for 28 year old Shane Geoghegan, who was shot dead in Kilteragh, Ireland, at the weekend.

Since the page was set up 36 hours ago, more than 8,500 ‘virtual candles’ have been lit and 2,000 messages of condolence written.

“The unexpected death of such a popular man as Shane has affected this very close community,” said Alex Stitt, the managing director of iAnnounce, in the release.

“It is a sign of the internet age that they have turned to online messaging to express their shock and sorrow at what has happened.”

iAnnounce is  used by various newspapers in the Johnston Press, Trinity Mirror and Newsquest newspaper groups, and was developed to make use social network tools for newspaper birth, deaths and marriages notices.

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