Editors' Blog | Journalism.co.uk » advertising revenue

Online advertising spend tops £4bn after 12.8% rise

Sarah Marshall — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:21:43 +0000

Spending on online advertising has topped £4 billion for the first time in the UK, as advertisers spend £1 in every £4 online, according to new research.

The findings, published today by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, showed that online advertising grew by 12.8 per cent, from £3.5 billion in 2009 to £4.1 billion last year. The digital share of the UK’s total advertising spend of £16.6 billion last year rose to 25 per cent.

Mobile advertising experienced 116 per cent year on year growth on a like-for-like basis, up from 32 per cent in 2009. Advertisers spent £83 million on mobile advertising in 2010, led by the entertainment and media sector.

Researchers explain the findings in this video:

Similar Posts:

Canadian newspaper publisher reports print growth, digital shrinkage

Joel Gunter — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:47:13 +0000

The New York Times yesterday reported that growth in digital advertising had offset a decline in print ad revenue. Which seems to make sense in 2010. But interestingly Canwest, publisher of the largest chain of English-language dailies in Canada, reported the same day that growth in print advertising had offset a decline in digital media revenue. So much so that the publisher grew overall revenue on the strength of the print ad money.

Parent company Postmedia Network Inc., which bought Canwest earlier this month, reported a one per cent increase in overall revenue despite a 16 per cent decrease in digital media.

Full story at this link…

Similar Posts:

How much is an article worth? ‘Dead tree’ thinking could hinder digital content economy

Patrick Smith — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:50:14 +0000

Could you spare 10p for a news report? Maybe 5p for the sports results? Many in the news industry would like us to pay to see news articles that we’ve previously enjoyed for free, whether it’s via websites or hand-held devices.

But one of the problems of this brave, new paid-content world is that the news publishing industry has yet to move on from long-held assumptions about the value of content, inspired by centuries of physical, print distribution.

For example, just look at the sheer size of national newspapers: they are huge products, especially on weekends. Big is better, goes the saying – and mass reach gives you more circulation and advertising revenue.

But in the global, decentralised, just-Google-it content economy, it doesn’t work like that: the publishers that will win through will have the most relevant, findable, highest quality content – not just lots of it.

To illustrate the mismatch between offline and online economics, I’ve gone through Wednesday’s edition of the Times to find out just how much is in it…

News: there are 42 separate substantial news items in today’s Times, not including some of the smaller NIBs, and at least seven separate analysis pieces;
Comment: including the three leaders, 13 comment pieces make their way into the main book;
Sport: 21 news stories and two features;
Then there’s the diary section: five lengthy and well-written obituaries, crosswords, weather, travel and the Register pages of interesting factoids;
The Times2 centre pullout has 10 features, some short, some long, as well as four reviews.

So our grand total for today’s Times is more than 100 articles. The quality of writing, pictures and editing is, as you would expect, consistently high.

But if these articles were available via a pay-per-view offer, how much would you pay? If they were priced 10p each, that means to buy everything in today’s paper, you would have to pay £10; at 5p per article, that’s £5 per issue. But my copy of the paper only cost £1.

News International boss Rupert Murdoch will more likely opt for a subscription model for the Times and Sunday Times websites – just as he’s succeeded in selling long-term pay TV packages around the the world.

But to reach a competitive pricepoint, he and other publishers will have to massively realign the value of each piece of news and comment from its current-day, paper value of one or two pence to fractions of pence.

In reality, the real market value of news is what people will pay and the danger is that for an entire generation of readers weaned on the free-to-air internet, that price is nothing at all…

Patrick Smith is a freelance journalist and event organiser, and formerly a correspondent for paidContent:UK and Press Gazette. He blogs at psmithjournalist.com and is @psmith on twitter.

Similar Posts:

Council news round-up: ad revenue shortage for East End Life and plans for new council TV

Laura Oliver — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:50:13 +0000

There’s been much debate amongst regional and local newspaper representatives in the UK about the impact of local authority ‘newspapers’ or freesheets on their advertising revenue, role in the community and news coverage.

Yet much of this debate has been difficult to frame, with exact details of staffing numbers, cost and output of these publications varying between authority.

In London, Andrew Gilligan suggested that local authorities in the city employed more staff writers than the capital’s newspapers.

This week some more stats can be added to the picture:

Press Gazette reports that Tower Hamlets’ Borough Council paper, East End Life, will need an extra £400,000 of tax payers’ money to keep it going.

According to a mid-year budget report from the authority, the freesheet is suffering from a £396,000 shortfall in advertising for the current financial year.

Deputy leader of the council, Joshua Peck, reportedly told the East London Advertiser that this lack of ad revenue would be made up for with cuts to the authority’s communications budget.

Add to this HoldtheFrontPage’s report on the cost of East End Life, which states:

“A previous investigation by the Advertiser showed that public-sector organisations paid a total of £980,000 to advertise in East End Life, making the true cost to the public purse £1.1 million a year.

“An alternative budget put forward by Tory councillor Tim Archer earlier in the year suggested the council could save £670,000 or 1pc off the average council tax, by scrapping the paper and taking out advertising with the Advertiser instead.”

Elsewhere, plans for a new TV station launched by Carmarthenshire Council (link spotted via Jon Slattery’s blog) have come under criticism.

According to a report on thisissouthwales.co.uk, the station would cost £30,000 a year to run. In a move to fund the new station, the authority is planning to drop one of its bi-monthly news magazines, which currently costs more than £114,000 to produce and distribute.

Industry groups have called on the Audit Commission to investigate the impact of local council newspapers on the regional media industry, as part of the government’s recommendations to the commission in the Digital Britain report. But the commission said such an assessment should be made by the Office of Fair Trading.

The commission will however review all aspects of council communications including press offices, publications, websites and expenditure on advertising jobs.

Similar Posts:

Future: Digital ads going from strength-to-strength

Chie Elliott — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:14:38 +0000

Specialist magazine publisher Future has reported a resilient and ‘healthy balance sheet’ in the face of recession with a 15 per cent increase in online advertising revenue in the nine months to June 30.

The company released an interim management statement today, which suggested that although print advertising revenues were down 8 per cent, this was offset by the growth in online advertising – resulting in a total fall of only 4 per cent.

Online ads represented 22 per cent, nearly a quarter, of total advertising revenue – up 19 per cent year-on-year – over the same period.

In the company’s interim report, CEO Stevie Spring said: “While it is premature to talk about a market recovery, there has been no deterioration in trading conditions since the half year.”

A third of the group’s revenue comes from its US operation and it capitalised on a favourable US exchange rate against the sterling with a 24 per cent stronger US dollar in the reported period.

As a result, the publisher had come out relatively unscathed through what it called ‘exceptionally challenging market conditions’, with an overall revenue decline of just 2 per cent, or 9 per cent calculated on a constant currency basis.

Publishing revenues

In the UK, which generates the remaining two thirds of the company’s income, publishing revenue, based on constant currency, was down 6 per cent. The fall in revenue was mainly due to a decline in PC gaming, personal computing and automotive titles, the report suggested.

In the same period, publishing revenues for the US operation fell 13 per cent, on a constant currency basis. The publisher blamed ‘greater exposure to generic advertising market volatility’ in the territory, particularly with regard to its digital business.

Future’s future

Future produces more than 80 newsstand magazines, 62 websites and 25 annual live events on special-interest topics, such as computer games, film, music and sport.

Spring, who according to paidContent:UK, ‘never talks down the health of the magazine industry’, was bullish about the future of the publisher:

“I am confident that when recovery comes, Future is well-positioned to benefit. We’ve continued to invest in both new products and new people and, more broadly, our strategy remains firmly on track. We are in the best shape we can be in for the mid-term,” he said.

Future’s annual results for the year to end of September will be announced on November 26.

Similar Posts:

Nick Denton: Gawker revenues up 45 per cent in first half of 2009

Laura Oliver — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:45:07 +0000

The plunge has already been pretty terrifying for a range of companies from Yahoo and IAC to the newspapers,” writes Gawker founder Nick Denton, referring to his previous prediction that media companies should prepare for a 40 per cent downturn in advertising revenue over the economic cycle.

“But I was wrong in one respect: a few premium internet brands, Gawker’s among them, have withstood the advertising apocalypse.”

Full post at this link…

Similar Posts:

The Observer: ‘Painful decisions’ about what it can print as advertising revenue and circulation fall

Judith Townend — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 08:06:08 +0000

Readers of the Observer might have noticed that the paper no longer prints a full television guide each week. Many have written to the paper to complain. One said that a full guide would be ‘infinitely preferable to part two of a Spanish or Italian CD, which is both incomplete and of absolutely no use to me.’

Yesterday Stephen Pritchard, the readers’ editor for the Observer, part of Guardian News&Media, explained:

“The figures are stark. With advertising revenue set to plummet 26 per cent this year and circulation down 6.9 per cent on last year, the Observer, like other newspapers, is having to make painful decisions about what it can afford to print. Loyal readers have displayed remarkable forbearance recently as the news, business and sport sections have gradually slimmed down but they could contain themselves no longer when the TV guide disappeared.”

(…) “This is not a decision we took lightly and it is a source of real regret to us,” wrote the editor, John Mulholland, in reply to complainants. “This was just one of the host of difficult decisions we have had to make in recent weeks. Newspapers and media groups are facing the most difficult trading conditions imaginable. Not only are we suffering from the catastrophic fallout from the credit crunch in terms of severely reduced advertising revenues but, additionally, our industry is undergoing structural change which is causing enormous disruption.”

Full story at this link…

Similar Posts:

Mashable: Local accounting for 74 per cent of advertising revenue on Facebook, says report

Laura Oliver — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:30:21 +0000

According to a new report from Borrell Associates, local advertisers and businesses will make up 74 per cent of Facebook’s ad revenue this year – around $229 million.

Mashable points out that Facebook makes geographic targeting of ads particularly easy. But the proportion is significantly higher than the amount of revenue from local advertisers expected for MySpace and Twitter.

Full story at this link…

Similar Posts:

Todd Gitlin’s keynote JiC speech transcript: The four wolves who crept up to journalism’s door

Judith Townend — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:19:07 +0000

Following our round-up of the Westminster students coverage of last week’s Journalism in Crisis conference, we’ll link to one final item:

Professor Todd Gitlin’s keynote speech, given via Skype, on the first day of the Westminster University / British Journalism Review Journalism in Crisis event (May 19): ‘A Surfeit of Crises: Circulation, Revenue, Attention, Authority, and Deference’.

Gitlin, who is professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University, talked about how four wolves have arrived at the door of journalism ‘simultaneously, while a fifth has already been lurking for some time’. These were the wolves no-one was expecting, because everyone’s been crying wolf for so long. Gitlin spoke mainly in regards to American journalism because ‘it is what I know best’.

He used quotes and statistics from the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism ‘Changing Newsroom’ 2008 report, and also his own anecdotal evidence and academic references, to illustrate the predicament – which he feels is fair to call a number of ‘crises’ – that journalism faces.

Here are a few choice extracts:

The four wolves at the door, and the fifth one lurking: “One is the precipitous decline in the circulation of newspapers. The second is the decline in advertising revenue, which, combined with the first, has badly damaged the profitability of newspapers. The third, contributing to the first, is the diffusion of attention. The fourth is the more elusive crisis of authority. The fifth, a perennial – so much so as to be perhaps a condition more than a crisis – is journalism’s inability or unwillingness to penetrate the veil of obfuscation behind which power conducts its risky business.”

Circulation of newspapers: “Overall, newspaper circulation has dropped 13.5 per cent for the dailies and 17.3 per cent for the Sunday editions since 2001; almost 5 per cent just in 2008. In what some are calling the Great Recession, advertising revenue is down – 23 per cent over the last two years – even as paper costs are up. Nearly one out of every five journalists working for newspapers in 2001 is now gone. Foreign bureaus have been shuttered – all those of the Boston Globe, for example, New England’s major paper.
“I have been speaking about newspapers’ recent decline, but to limit the discussion to the last decade or so both overstates the precipitous danger and understates the magnitude of a secular crisis—which is probably a protracted crisis in the way in which people know—or believe they know—the world. In the US, newspaper circulation has been declining, per capita, at a constant rate since 1960. The young are not reading the papers. While they say they ‘look’ at the papers online, it is not clear how much looking they do.”
“The newspaper was always a tool for simultaneity (you don’t so much read a paper as swim around in it, McLuhan was fond of saying) at least as much as a tool for cognitive sequence. What if the sensibility that is now consolidating itself—with the Internet, mobile phones, GPS, Facebook and Twitter and so on – the media for the Daily Me, for point-to-point and many-to-many transmission—what if all this portends an irreversible sea-change in the very conditions of successful business?”

The Clamor for Attention: “Attention has been migrating from slower access to faster; from concentration to multitasking; from the textual to the visual and the auditory, and toward multi-media combinations. Multitasking alters cognitive patterns. Attention attenuates. Advertisers have for decades talked about the need to ‘break through the clutter,’ the clutter consisting, amusingly, of everyone else’s attempts to break through the clutter. Now, media and not just messages clutter.”
“Just under one-fifth of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 claim to look at a daily newspaper – which is not to say how much of it they read. The average American newspaper reader is 55 years old. Of course significant numbers of readers are accessing – which is not to say reading – newspapers online, but the amount of time they seem to spend there is bifurcated. In roughly half of the top 30 newspaper sites, readership is steady or falling. Still, ‘of the top 5 online newspapers - ranked by unique users – [the] three [national papers] reported growth in the average time spent per person: NYTimes.com, USAToday.com, and the Wall Street Journal Online.’ One thing is clear: Whatever the readership online, it is not profitable.”
“The question that remains, the question that makes serious journalists tremble in the U. S., is: Who is going to pay for serious reporting? For the sorts of investigations that went on last year, for example, into the background of the surprise Republican nominee for Vice President, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.”

Authority: “Journalism’s legitimacy crisis has two overlapping sources: ideological disaffection from right and left, and generalized distrust. Between them, they register something of a cultural sea change. The authority of American journalism has, for a century or so, rested on its claim to objectivity and a popular belief that that claim is justified. These claims are weakening.”

Deference: “We have seen in recent years two devastating failures to report the world – devastating not simply in their abject professional failures but in that they made for frictionless glides into catastrophe. The first was in the run-up to the Iraq war (…) More recently, we have the run-up to the financial crisis (…) Given these grave failures of journalism even when it was operating at greater strength not so long ago, one might say that rampant distrust is a reasonable and even a good thing.”

Resolutions: “The Project on Excellence’s conclusion is that ‘roughly half of the downturn in the last year was cyclical, that is, related to the economic downturn. But the cyclical problems are almost certain to worsen in 2009 and make managing the structural problems all the more difficult.’ Notice the reference to ‘managing the structural problems.’ They cannot be solved, they can only be managed. The unavoidable likelihood, pending a bolt from the blue, is that the demand for journalism will continue to decline and that no business model can compensate for its declining marketability. No meeting of newspaper people is complete these days without a call – some anguished, some confident – for a ‘new business model’ that would apply to the online ‘paper.’ The call has been issued over the course of years now. It might be premature to say so, but one might suspect that it has not been found because there is none to be found.”
“What I do know is that journalism is too important to be left to those business interests. Leaving it to the myopic, inept, greedy, unlucky, and floundering managers of the nation’s newspapers to rescue journalism on their own would be like leaving it to the investment wizards at the American International Group (AIG), Citibank, and Goldman Sachs, to create a workable, just global credit system on the strength of their good will, their hard-earned knowledge, and their fidelity to the public good.”

Full transcript at this link…

Similar Posts:

AdweekMedia’s US magazine ‘hot list’: Economist and Elle take top spots

Laura Oliver — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:06:28 +0000

AdweekMedia has published its annual ‘hot list’ for US magazine titles:

“Inclusion in AdweekMedia’s annual ‘Hot List’ is based on several factors, including: ad page and revenue gains; performance within a magazine’s competitive category; circulation gains; interviews with media buyers and consultants, and AdweekMedia’s own editorial judgment,” says a release.

Here’s the top 10 compared by circulation and advertising revenue (in millions of dollars) using Many Eyes’ visualisation tools (click on the images to see more):

Circulation

Advertising revenue

Similar Posts:

MediaGuardian: DMGT to axe 1,000 from Northcliffe Media

Laura Oliver — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:18:57 +0000

Daily Mail & General Trust has announced possible job cuts of 1,000 at its regional publishing division Northcliffe Media.

The group posted a 24 per cent fall in advertising revenue across its national newspaper division and 37 per cent drop for regionals for Q1 2009.

Full story at this link…

Similar Posts:

Rebekah Wade’s first public speech in full

Judith Townend — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:47:56 +0000

If the Wordle and other coverage isn’t enough, here’s the Hugh Cudlipp speech by the editor of the Sun, Rebekah Wade, in full [note: may have differed very slightly in actual delivery]:

The challenging future of national and regional newspapers is now the staple diet of media commentators.

If you have been reading the press writing about the press you’d all be forgiven for questioning your choice of career.

I’m not denying we’re in a tough place – we are.

But I don’t want to use this speech to make grand statements on the future of our industry.

I want to talk to you about journalism.

As students, you will be very familiar with the academic analysis.

So tonight I thought I could share some of my own experiences in this often infuriating but always fascinating profession.

I started out as Eddie Shah’s tea girl and went on to attend this college before starting work at The News of The World.

This educational video, produced in the 1940s by a Professor Twogood, reminded me of my early years.

[shows video]

Fortunately the majority of my colleagues did NOT share Twogood’s view on women in the newsroom.

But there were a few!

When, at the age of 27, I was made deputy editor of the News of the World, some struggled with the concept.

At the corporate golf day, a senior male executive lost the buttons off his shirt.

The editor and I were busy meeting and greeting our high profile guests when suddenly a golf shirt and some buttons were thrust into my hand.

“When you’ve gotta minute darlin’ – sew ‘em back on for me, I’m teeing off in twenty minutes.”

Despite needlework not being my strong point, I did have the shirt ready in time.

And we were all sorry to hear what happened to him.

But trust me, no amount of studying you do here will prepare you for the sheer exhilaration of working in a newsroom.

It’s intoxicating. Because as a journalist, you can make a difference.

And today I hope you will leave this lecture hall more convinced than ever that journalism is the career for you.

I think it’s important that we start by dealing with the doom mongering.

Firstly – newspaper pessimism is age old.

Nearly as old as some of our media commentators I can see in the audience.

In ancient Rome, Julius Caesar produced the Acta Diurna. A daily gazette described by historians as:

‘Hand written journals posted in Rome and the provinces with the intention of feeding the populace information.’

As well as political decisions and military campaigns, I smiled when I read that these newsletters were said to record:

‘Gladiatorial contests, astrological omens, scandals, notable births, deaths and marriages, trials and executions.’

If you think about it not much has changed.

Our newspapers are still full of:

Gladiatorial contests.

We just call it Prime Minister’s Question Time.

Astrological Omens

Our own Mystic Meg

Scandals

Well they did until Justice Eady came along.

Notable Deaths

Obituary pages are still a must read.

Notable births

And trials and executions….well, we do have the Daily Mail.

Even in 59 BC these newsletters caused great debate and later rulers banned them, feeling they had no future.

The first modern newspaper was published to general scepticism in 1609.

But four hundred years later we are still here.

I believe for one reason only:

Journalism.

We shouldn’t fool ourselves.

I am not alone in thinking 2009 will see a seismic change to our national newspapers.

And to understand some of the issues, it’s worth a quick analysis of our industry in 2008.

The ABCs of our national daily newspapers show that last year 382,000 people stopped buying a daily paper.

And if you look at this chart – is it a coincidence that the biggest losses are where we’ve seen the biggest cuts in journalism?

Of course, the answers to our industry problems are more complex than that.

Last year, we gave away over 163 million copies in bulks to maintain these levels.

We listed 270 million foreign sales.

We gave away 120 million free CD’s and DVDs – of questionable quality and at enormous cost – just to rent readers.

We paid our retailers and wholesalers over 800 million pounds in margins that have outstripped RPI.

And while 1,400 corner shops closed, it’s been years since we developed alternative new routes to market.

We saw another increase in the number of free newspapers. In 2008 we distributed 639 million copies.

The huge growth in digital still doesn’t pay for high quality journalism.

We give away our expensive editorial content free online without an economic model that compensates for the loss in traditional revenues.

The rising cost of news and magazine print is in double figures and there is the small matter of the recession.

But despite all these challenges, there are huge positives. Especially if you compare our industry to television.

Despite the credit crunch, 3.5 billion daily newspapers were sold last year with an estimated 1.8 billion pounds in advertising revenue.

Of course like any business in a recession, we have to cut costs and drive revenue to survive.

But cost cutting in this business only works if the savings are reinvested in journalism.

The death knell is already ringing for publishers who have forgotten our reason for being.

And leaving aside state funded and trust supported journalism, those of us struggling to survive in a free market have seen our competitors in the business change dramatically.

At The Sun, our scale means we now view prime time ITV as more of a competitor for advertising revenue than other newspapers.

Ten years ago, 30 TV programmes delivered a larger audience than The Sun. Now there are only three or four on commercial channels that can consistently deliver that scale:

Paid for media undersells itself. So even with our reach and demographics, national newspaper advertising revenues are predicted to be down 12 per cent this year.

As an industry we have perfected the art of beating ourselves up.

Sometimes I think we need a PR.

With these market forces, it’s even more important to remember why we exist:

Journalism.

Newspapers do not have the monopoly.

Matt Drudge and Perez Hilton regularly break stories that we would kill for at The Sun. Sky News, ITN, compete for buy ups and investigations.

And with the growth of citizen journalism the public are competing with news agencies.

In Germany, Bild are even selling their readers digital cameras complete with USB so they can upload their video content directly to the newsdesk. Which I think is very exciting.

Hugh Cudlipp is remembered for his belief in campaigning journalism.

Great press campaigns can change history and shape new laws. They can build a bridge between public opinion and public policy.

But they also require monetary investment and long term commitment.

The Times under Thomas Barnes campaigned brilliantly and relentlessly for the introduction of the Reform Act of 1832 which set this country on the road to universal suffrage.

The Sunday Times uncovered the scandal of Thalidomide victims in the 70s and five years later provided thousands of children with much needed compensation.

The Daily Mail’s Stephen Lawrence campaign for justice pioneered brave and uncharted waters for newspapers as did the Daily Mirrorr’s fight for the ‘Bridgewater Four’.

All these campaigns and hundreds more have made a huge difference to the lives of ordinary people in this country.

Whether it is The Guardian’s call to Free Our Data or The Telegraphs fight for savers, The Independent’s battle for Fair Pay or The Mail’s ban on plastic bags.

They are all valuable ways of connecting with your readership above and beyond any marketing or promotional strategy.

Every newspaper, has in its history, causes for pride.

However, to make this point, I will have to use my own experiences to demonstrate how this connection, this collective power between a newspaper and it’s readers can be a force for good.

Last November on a visit to Afghanistan I found myself wandering around camp Bastian in search of a missing page three girl, (as you do) when I was apprehended by an angry sergeant major.

With clear contempt for my blue press flak jacket and out of bounds location, he sneered as he demanded to know what media outlet I was from.

The Sun, I said. Hoping this was the right answer.

Well, it was as if I had told him he was coming back home to Brise Norton with us that night.

A broad smile. A big handshake. A thank you for all the Sun readers support. A shout to his colleagues, more thanks, everyone wearing our Help for Heroes band.

Their pride in our pride for them.

And Becky, 22, from Bromley was safely returned.

But the serious aspect of my trip was to see for myself the result and the importance of our Help For Heroes campaign.

Travelling from Kabul to the farthest forward operating bases in Helmand I discovered that their gratitude for any support is overwhelming.

The hostile public opinion to the war in Iraq had led to creeping anti troop sentiment throughout the UK.

This meant desolate parades for homecoming regiments, uniformed soldiers being jeered at in the streets, a lack of support, understanding and sympathy for all they were going through in theatre and a feeling of neglect on their return.

When Bryn and Emma parry set up this charity for the war wounded in 2007 they approached us for help.

Our campaign began with this page one splash and eighteen months later Sun readers have raised millions for state of the art rehabilitation facilities.

We’ve had a number one song from X-Factor.

Prince Charles hosted the first ever Royal Military Awards.

The Prime Minister committed to more funding and the opposition agreed to do the same.

But most importantly the campaign moved the dial on the public’s attitude to the military.

Right now in Helmand, British troops are engaged in some of the fiercest fighting they’ve encountered so far.

Many of our young soldiers have died in this latest push into Taliban strongholds. Others will return physically or psychologically damaged for life.

But if you look at some of the newspapers you’d be forgiven for being totally unaware of this latest battle.

There is now great public awareness and support for the daily heroism displayed by our Armed Forces.

It is up to all of us to report it.

Sarah’s law was one of the more controversial campaigns of my career.

I’ve never really talked about it but in some ways it represents one of my points about campaigning journalism.

Listening to your readers.

The entire nation grieved over the abduction and murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne and like everyone else I was deeply moved by this terrible tragedy.

I had just joined the News of the World as editor and after the daily pace of The Sun, I was frustrated by the waiting room atmosphere of a Sunday paper newsroom on a Tuesday.

So I took a chance and drove down to see Mike and Sara Payne who were still staying with Sarah’s grandparents. The press pack who were outside waiting for the next police conference, were more than a little surprised when I turned up on the doorstep.

I introduced myself to the Family Liaison officer and I told him I was the editor of the News of the World and I would like to offer my help and support to the Payne family.

Inexplicably Mike and Sara agreed to see me and repercussions of that meeting started the campaign you now know as Sarah’s Law.

It was immediately evident that Sara Payne was an incredible woman. Despite being racked with grief she was determined to get justice for daughter.

She told me that the police already had a suspect. He was a local convicted paedophile whose modus operandi fitted the crime.

He had previous of abusing and abducting and yet he was living near Sarah’s grandparents, unmonitored by any authorities, left ready to strike again.

Roy Whiting it turned out, was one of 110,000 convicted paedophiles living in the community.

The huge inconsistencies and loop holes in the 1997 Sex Offenders Act meant that there were tragedies like Sarah waiting to happen and that all the relevant agencies including the NSPCC had fought for three years to correct this legislation.

But nothing had been done.

From that first meeting, Sara and I spoke nearly every day. We were determined to change the law in Sarah’s memory.

Since then, Sara has lobbied at least five home secretaries and debated the rights and wrongs of the campaign up and down the country with great success.

Naming and shaming was my responsibility.

It was a blunt and contentious way of informing the public of these gaps in policy.

Hard lessons were learnt but I don’t regret the campaign for one minute:

Because in the end it was a simple truth.

As a parent, would you like to know if there was a convicted paedophile living next door?

The answer was always yes.

Parts of the media went on the attack with a blatant disregard for the facts of the campaign or more importantly their readers’ opinions on the matter.

After we published the first list, a group of mothers from an impoverished housing estate in Portsmouth, took to the streets to protest.

The BBC described them as ‘an angry lynch mob’.

What the BBC did not report was that the mothers had just discovered that Victor Burnett, a paedophile with 14 convictions for raping and abusing young boys between the ages of four and nine, had been re-housed amongst them unmonitored by the authorities.

Totally unaware of his background, the residents had complained for years about Burnett’s inappropriate behaviour towards their children but their voices, until then, had remained unheard.

This lack of control and supervision outraged the public. Weak sentencing, the incredible high rate of recidivism and the lack of clear and strong legislation meant there were predators all over the country.

Eight years later, just last month, Sara Payne was awarded a well deserved MBE for her tireless work and for the fourteen new pieces of legislation that form part of Sarah’s Law.

She rightly thanked the general public, in particular the News of the World readers, as without their collective power, nothing would have changed.

But campaigns can also be a lot of fun.

Years ago, an agency filed a story that villagers in a remote corner of Spain were going to celebrate a festival by pushing a donkey off a cliff to it’s death.

Blackie, was to be the sacrificial ass.

The affinity the population have with animals meant they were up in arms at this barbaric cruelty.

In turn, this reaction sparked a Fleet street dash to rescue Blackie and return him to a donkey sanctuary back in England. The victor would surely gain the publics gratitude and lets not forget – an uplift in sales.

The Sun, first on the scene, convinced the farmer to sell us Blackie and with the deal done, went off to celebrate their scoop.

Fatal error.

The Daily Star, arrived, kidnapped Blackie and drove him a hundred miles away to a ‘safe field’ and reaped all the glory.

Similarly, the Tamworth Two – five month old piglets who escaped from a lorry as they were being unloaded at a slaughterhouse – captured the publics imagination.

The search was on for the missing pair Butch and Sundance and once located, the pigs found themselves at the centre of a media auction to save their bacon.

£15,000 later, making them the most expensive pork in history, the Daily Mail had their scoop.

The fight between The Sun and The Mirror to return the 1966 football to Geoff Hurst is legendry newspaper tale.

The story broke that one of the German players, Helmut Haller had kept the winning ball after our world cup victory and thirty years later was now trying to sell it.

Our football loving nation demanded it back.

And Fleet Street was happy to oblige.

At least ten reporters and almost as many photographers descended on some sleepy German village all determined to get the ball which was not much more than a deflated bit of old leather.

£120,000 later, Helmut looked like he’d actually won the world cup and The Mirror were victorious.

These light hearted campaigns are often dismissed by ‘worthy’ sorts. They clearly forget that the readership have a whole gamut of emotions including a sense of humour.

Campaigns provide a unique connection to the public especially when the subject matter is of a serious nature.

For me, nothing can illustrate this connection better than our recent Baby P campaign.

The public outcry was deafening. And we began our fight for justice with a determination to expose the lack of accountability and responsibility for Baby P’s brutal death.

We delivered 1.5 million signatures to Downing Street and the collective power worked.

Children’s Secretary Ed Balls was forced to use emergency legislation to ensure that those responsible were held to account.

We received many many thousands of letters at The Sun about our Baby P coverage. I’d like to read you one:

‘I have never been a huge fan of The Sun, however I thank you for the coverage of Baby P. I am so grateful for the campaign. This is not a modern day witch-hunt but a petition for justice. Please, please do not relent.

In contrast, I’d like to quote from an article in…. ‘The Guardian.’

“Full of fury and repellent hysteria isn’t that part of the game? This is less about the creation of public emotion and more about its manipulation.

This knee-jerk tabloid kicking reaction is just dull.

But total disregard and respect for public opinion never ceases to amaze me.

They demanded accountability.

And as a result of the campaign, some, just some, of those responsible were removed from office without compensation.

Or as this Sun reader wrote:

‘The tabloid press, which the arty-farty press like to look down on so much, has shown that it prides morality over political correctness.’

There is nothing more rewarding than setting the news agenda with your own story.

Every newspaper editor, every journalist, lives for a great scoop.

The newsroom needs journalists who have great contacts, the reporters who can break the news not just report it, the photographers that can bring in the exclusives.

Great investigations, like yesterdays Sunday Times expose of The Labour Lords are lifeblood to newsapers.

I read an article a few weeks ago about The Penny Trumpet that began in 1841. The slogan for this single sheet, one penny publication was ‘quality not quantity’.

A phrase now over used but still a lesson to us all.

The quality of our journalism will make or break our industry not the recession.

Our ancient craft is to tell many people what few people know.

The sheer thrill of disclosure motivates the best journalists.

And as an industry, we should use our collective power to campaign for the freedom to do so.

This country is full of regulators, lawyers and politicians eager to frame and implement legislation that would constrain freedoms hard won over centuries.

We are already losing those freedoms. Privacy legislation is being created by the drip, drip of case law in the High Court without any reference to parliament.

Sometimes I suspect most of the media commentariat are suffering from Munchausen syndrome.

They are certainly making us suffer unnecessarily!

Only journalism allows us to exist. Yet they often decry it’s existence.

And it’s the epitome of self-flagellation when The Guardian publishes Max Mosley’s views on press freedom.

The relentless negativity, this almost morbid fascination with our own demise, must stop.

News International, Associated Newspapers and The Telegraph Group are battling to change the restrictive and prohibitively expensive Conditional Fee Arrangements.

But we need the rest of the industry to win this fight.

The silence is sometimes deafening.

The new distinguished chair of the Press Complaints Commission, Peta Buscombe certainly has her work cut out.

You would understand if the public were interested in our naval gazing. But they are not.

No one really lives in the bubble world of media-metroville.

And every successful business needs to know it’s customer.

Every year, my editorial team go on vacation with Sun readers either at a caravan park or holiday camp.

This year we are off to Sunny Blackpool for four nights as part of our £9.50 holiday promotion .

In 2008 nearly 2.5 million people took up the offer. It makes The Sun the biggest short haul travel firm in the UK.

The holiday is invaluable time with our readership and there are often some surreal moments.

On one such weekend at Butlins in Bognor – we were in the Sun and Moon pub having a few drinks, when one reader decided to make a speech.

‘I love The Sun’, he said, ‘it’s the best. But the editor should be fired.’

Much laughter from my merry team,

He went on to explain the reason for my demise:

‘I couldn’t believe it the other day, I picked up the paper to find that Yasser Arafat’s death got less coverage than Wayne Rooney’s car crash. I mean what’s the world come to?

My political editor George Pascoe Watson was thrilled. Clearly in vino veritas, George stands up and announces: ‘old chap, I’d just like to say on behalf of the political team at The Sun, I totally agree with your sentiments.

‘To be honest mate’ replied the reader. ‘I’m not sure why they employ you either. No one’s interested in that Westminster claptrap you write.’

But the upside of really knowing who your readers are is worth it.

And knowing who your future readers are – is the holy grail.

Tesco’s boss Sir Terry Leahy regularly operates the check out in one of his stores and he even gets his executives to live with Tesco customers for a week to really understand their wants.

As an industry our data collection is traditionally poor. New media has made that more effective but we still trail behind companies like Tesco.

Obama’s election campaign can teach us a lot. The data he already has on his supporters is immense.

We need new ways of engagement – to find out everything about our supporters.

So we can understand their buying habits and provided them with the relevant content, promotions, offers and services they require.

I said, at the beginning, I wasn’t here to give an obituary on our industry, far from it.

Despite our ‘internal’ disagreements, the depth of quality and diversity in our national newspapers will be our salvation.

But it’s important to be prepared for the challenges ahead.

Investment in journalism is the key to long term prosperity yet cost cutting is inevitable.

Journalism needs a free press to thrive yet under the threat of censorship the industry remains divided.

We’ve been masters of the written word for centuries yet we fear a future beyond print.

An independent media is imperative to a democracy yet the recession will hurt all but state funded journalism.

Our traditional business model is still profitable yet we need new ways to connect with our readers to stop the decline.

These contradictions are subject to deep thought in most newspaper companies.

I am optimistic.

And as an industry, we owe it to you, students of our trade, to rise to these challenges.

We need to ask ourselves:

Can we unite to fight against a privacy law that has no place in a democracy ?

Can we agree that self-regulation is the best way to deal with the occasional excesses of a free press?

Can we have a press that has the courage and commitment to listen to and fight for its readers?

Can we survive this economic climate if we keep investment in journalism at the heart of what we do?

I suggest to you tonight: in the words of Bob The Builder, plagiarised by Barak Obama.

Yes. We. Can.

Thank you.

Similar Posts:

A timely week for the Huffington Post to launch mobile

Judith Townend — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:13:18 +0000

In all the election excitement, this nearly got missed but the Huffington Post went mobile this week.

Media Bistro originally reported:

“HuffPost Mobile’s election coverage includes top news stories, election results and featured blog posts. Other non-election content includes pieces from HuffPost‘s various sections like green, living, entertainment, media and style.”

It’s powered by Crisp Wireless and the two partners will now be looking to gain advertising revenue through the service, Media Bistro reports.

Similar Posts:

Round-up of the recent UK newspaper job cuts

Stuart Goodwin — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:52:58 +0000

It’s hardly like newspaper jobs were all that secure anyway, but this month’s financial situation (something about a recession) hasn’t helped things either over the last couple of weeks.

This week news broke that two of the UK’s biggest-selling regional daily newspapers will cut 135 jobs.

The family run publishers Midland News Association are looking to merge their publications, the Express and Star and the Shropshire Star, with the aim of reducing costs by around £3 million a year.

After a decline in advertising revenue, the publishers considered it a necessary move, as reported over at the Guardian. There are plans to merge some parts of classified advertising, production and finance.

Press Gazette reported that despite the merger, both publications will maintain their individual identities, while also keeping separate editors and reporters.

At the beginning of last week we learnt that the Metro in Manchester will be axing ten jobs. It has since been announced that the jobs lost will be in editorial, sales and adminstration roles. The Liverpool office has been closed and relocated to Manchester.

Three of Trinity Mirror’s East Midlands publications ceased production last week, as reported over at Hold the Front Page: the 126-year-old Long Eaton Advertiser, The Nu News and The Long Eaton Trader. A distribution worker and 3 members of advertising were made redundant. Due to staff reassignments, no editorial job cuts were made.

Similar Posts:

New media types among Evening Standard’s 1000 most influential Londoners

Judith Townend — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:49:59 +0000

Peter Mandelson had to be a last minute addition to the list because the magazine had already gone to press: being offline seems to be a recurring theme for the London Evening Standard’s 1000 most influential Londoners list, out this evening.

Can we get an online version? Can we heck! After time wasted going round the editorial houses through the Evening Standard switchboard, Brighton-based Journalism.co.uk is getting sent a print version.

So in the meantime (till the print copy arrives) here’s the online media and general media types we’ve spotted on the list of 50 that are featured on the website. And it looks like new media gets a fairly good representation.

The little ‘see new media’ under the names almost had us thinking we could click on links… no chance. Well, we’re not in London; we don’t really exist, clearly.

Shiny Media’s three founders are included – and quoted as being “highly influential in the UK online world”. They aren’t among the very top 50, but you can see a scanned in bit of the list on the Shiny blog.

Media/Online types from the top 50:

Nikesh Arora, GOOGLE, EUROPEAN VP: Boss of the internet giant’s most important base outside California, bringing in close to a billion pounds a year in advertising revenue in the UK. Landed Google job after 17 interviews. (New Media, TV & Radio)

Jonathan Ive, 41, APPLE, DESIGN GURU: The world’s most influential product designer, involved in the iPhone and iPod. He is returning to British roots, buying a £2.5 million retreat here. (New Media)

Mark Thompson, 51, BBC, DIRECTOR-GENERAL: From deception scandals to swingeing job cuts, Thompson has had to weather many storms while rival broadcasters pitch for a slice of the corporation’s income from the licence fee (Television & Radio)

Outside of the big 50 we’ll have to rely on the Guardian’s Media Monkey for information:

“…chief exec James Murdoch, Ashley Highfield, chief exec of the Kangaroo on-demand TV project and, drum roll please, Evening Standard owner Lord Rothermere, chairman of DMGT! Who’d have thunk that thisislondon.co.uk was such a groundbreaker?

Other media bods on the list were Paul Darce, Rebecca Wade, Ed Richards, Mark Thompson, Simon Cowell, Simon Fuller, Nick Ferrari, Emily Bell, Eric Huggers, Evan Davies, John Humphrys, Jay Hunt, Peter Horrocks, Alexandra Shulman and Gok Wan.”

Similar Posts: