This week is Local Newspaper Week so a good time to take a look at how regional publishers are innovating in digital.

In this week’s Journalism.co.uk podcast, technology correspondent Sarah Marshall speaks to:

• Nigel Vincent, head of online editorial development at Newsquest
• Marc Cooper, head of publishing at Northcliffe Digital
• Ed Walker,  senior digital producer, Trinity Mirror

They talk about how journalists working for the regional titles are approaching social media, data journalism and mobile – or iPad – reporting.

You can hear future podcasts by signing up to the Journalism.co.uk iTunes podcast feed.

• #jpod: How journalists can use SMS to engage with the audience
• #jpod – SoLoMo: a look at the Guardian and Northcliffe’s innovations in social and local
• #jpod: How news organisations are using Pinterest
• #jpod – How the social media community can shape the news agenda
• #jpod: Why the Guardian is taking a laid-back approach to news on the iPad

The National Union of Journalists has welcomed news that Guardian News and Media editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger has offered to take a pay cut – and the union has called on other newspaper bosses to do the same.

The Guardian reported that Rusbridger would take a 10 per cent voluntary cut in the 2012-13 financial year, from £438,900 to £395,010. His pension contribution will also be reduced.

NUJ deputy general secretary Barry Fitzpatrick said in a release:

“I welcome Alan’s response to the NUJ’s suggestion that he should take a pay cut and show a lead to executives within the industry at a time when many journalists face redundancy and pay freezes. I hope that others including Sly Bailey, chief executive of Trinity Mirror, and Richard Desmond owner of the Express newspapers, will now be following suit.”

Trinity Mirror investors have expressed concern about Bailey’s pay package, almost £1.7 million in 2010. The company’s share price has fallen by 87 per cent in the past decade.

• Express Newspapers staff vote for strike action
• MediaGuardian: Channel 5 plans revamp of news programmes
• TM Birmingham chapels’ motion of no confidence
• MediaGuardian: Express owner Richard Desmond loses libel case
• FT.com: Freesheet model could be first to fail

Trinity Mirror is to deliver personalised web content across its national news and entertainment sites using “recommendation engine technology” by Rummble Labs, a London-based technology start-up.

In a release, Rummble Labs said it will integrate its technology across the Mirror’s website, 3am and the Mirror’s football site to “provide better targeted and personalised content to users”.

The technology will deliver personalised content by combining real-time analysis of social data with site activity, the release states.

Rummble Labs said that the technology will allow Trinity Mirror to take activity data and combine it with meaningful social data insights from Facebook, to provide powerful recommendations on content or products.

In the release, Chris Ellis, Trinity Mirror’s managing director, digital, nationals division, said:

The recommendation engine will provide highly-personalised content for our users and will drive engagement and page views across our news, entertainment and sports sites.

Alex Housley, chief operating officer, Rummble Labs said:

We will be helping Trinity Mirror make sense of a huge amount of social data and enabling them to unlock the real value of that data.

• New appointment: Ayers is made regional web publishing director at Trinity Mirror Regionals
• Digg launches recommendation engine
• Trinity Mirror Wales site renamed WalesOnline
• IBM: Trinity’s Midlands shake-up to save 30 per cent
• NUJ release: NUJ calls on Trinity Mirror to ‘put stop on cost-cutting’ programmes

Announcing the launch of an internal review of editorial controls and practices last week, Trinity Mirror, publisher of the Daily Mirror, was keen to stress that the review was not connected to recent phone-hacking allegations levelled against its tabloid.

The publisher issued a statement in response to the claims that the Mirror was implicated in the use of the so-called dark arts, calling them “totally unsubstantiated”.

But allegations concerning the paper have since mounted. Lawyer Mark Lewis, who has represented a number of celebrities in phone-hacking suits against News International, said in yesterday’s Sunday Times that the Mirror is facing “about three or four cases which will start within the next few weeks”.

Another report, in the Independent on Sunday, claims that “top investors” in Trinity Mirror, undoubtedly concerned by the steep share-price drop the company saw last week, “want to know more” and have quizzed chief executive Sly Bailey.

Former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, who was fired by Bailey in 2004, has come under scrutiny as the spotlight shifts from News International to Trinity Mirror, although he denies any knowledge of criminality at the Mirror during his time there. Conservative MP Louise Mensch was forced to apologise to Morgan in parliament last week, after incorrectly stating he had admitted being aware of phone hacking at the tabloid.

Citing evidence collected by the Information Commissioner’s Operation Motorman report, blogger Guido Fawkes has alleged that Morgan signed off on £442,000-worth of invoices submitted to the paper by a private detective. It is important to note, however, that the use of a private detective does not necessarily involve any criminality.

According to a report in yesterday’s (31 July) Sunday Telegraph, Trinity Mirror is planning to increase its cost-cutting target for the year from £15 million to £25 million, triggering further job losses.

The company is due to publish its annual financial results on 11 August.

• The top 10 most-read stories on Journalism.co.uk, 17-23 December
• Phone-hacking: Dispatches source claims Coulson listened to recordings
• ‘The silence is almost eerie’: press holds back on phone hacking scandal
• Independent: Plan hatched by media figures to rescue News of the World
• Panorama to accuse News of the World of hacking emails

The editorial director of the north east regional division of Trinity Mirror Paul Robertson is to leave after 22 years working for the publisher.

In a statement Robertson, who was also editor of the Newscastle Evening Chronicle, said he was after a “fresh challenge”.

Having project managed the recent change in the Chronicle publishing schedule, I think it’s now the right time for me to seek a fresh challenge. The team in the north east is outstanding and I would like to thank them all for their support. I will miss the place but most of all the people I have worked with, many of whom are friends as well as colleagues. I wish everyone at ncjMedia and GMC the best of luck and success for the future.

According to Trinity Mirror, under Robertson’s editorship many new platforms and campaigns have been created, such as Your Health, Community Champions and the Great Family Read. He was also “centrally involved in driving the multimedia agenda, overseeing the launch of ChronicleLive”, a release added.

• More Trinity Mirror cuts: three North West and North Wales weeklies closed
• Press Gazette: Latest Trinity Mirror relaunch includes hyperlocal community features
• NUJ Release: Ballot for action at Trinity Mirror Newcastle titles
• Holdthefrontpage.co.uk: No confidence motion for Trinity Mirror Regionals MD
• Liverpool Echo relaunches print edition

Trinity Mirror today announced the appointment of Chris Ellis to a newly created role of managing director, digital, within its nationals division.

The former senior vice president and chief operating officer for Europe at MySpace will be responsible for increasing digital growth, according to a release.

Chris Ellis, said: “I’m delighted to be joining Trinity Mirror. I’m excited by the opportunity to lead the new dedicated digital group which, together with such a strong editorial heritage and passionate consumer base, means the company is well positioned to take full advantage of the growth of all things digital.”

• Telegraph’s Cheesbrough climbs paywall to land News International job
• New appointment: Ayers is made regional web publishing director at Trinity Mirror Regionals
• Media release: Mirror launching personalised web content
• Mirror.co.uk unveils new ‘cleaner’ look
• IBM: Trinity’s Midlands shake-up to save 30 per cent

Advertising revenues at Trinity Mirror dropped by 10 percent in the first four months of the year, according to an interim management statement published today.

Overall revenues decreased by six per cent year-on-year, excluding the revenues from GMG Regional Media, acquired by Trinity Mirror last year. Within its regional division Trinity Mirror’s digital revenues grew on an adjusted basis by three per cent, while national digital revenues fell by nine per cent, which the company put down to continued declines in Bingo revenue.

The trading environment remains challenging due to the fragile economic environment and the adverse effect of public sector spending cuts and tax increases. These factors continue to adversely impact the key drivers of our business, such as consumer confidence, unemployment and the property market and are contributing to revenue declines.

In March, Trinity Mirror reported a 17 per cent rise in operating profit for 2010, following the acquisition of GMG Regional Media.

Trinity Mirror’s report follows Johnston Press’ results published earlier this week, which showed a 10.6 per cent drop in advertising revenue across print and digital.

• New figures show ad revenue decline slowing at Johnston Press and Trinity Mirror
• Digital revenue helping magazine publisher Future get back on track
• Mail Online helps DMGT to significant increase in digital revenue
• New appointment: Ayers is made regional web publishing director at Trinity Mirror Regionals
• Press Gazette: Trinity Mirror looks to cut £7m after announcing falling profits

Sky News blogger Mark Kleinman reports today that Trinity Mirror made a secret merger approach to Mecom, one of Europe’s biggest regional newspaper publishers.

According to the Sky News report, Trinity Mirror, which publishes the Daily Mirror and around 150 regional titles in the UK, approached Mecom with an all-share merger offer in November but was rebuffed.

A spokesman for Trinity Mirror told Journalism.co.uk today that it doesn’t comment on market speculation.

Mecom has not yet responded to a request for comment.

Full Sky News blog post at this link.

• Guardian: Trinity Mirror and DMGT mulled merger of regional media
• GMG Regional Media chief exec confirms talks without naming Trinity Mirror
• Trinity Mirror reports 10 per cent drop in advertising revenue
• #FollowJourn: @davidhiggerson/head of multimedia, Trinity Mirror
• GMG sells regional media business to Trinity Mirror for £44.8m

Trinity Mirror had “contemplated” selling some of its shares to the Daily Mail and General Trust earlier this year in return for DMGT’s regional newspaper group Northcliffe Media coming under its control, according to a report from the Guardian.

This would reportedly have been part of a merger which was allegedly being considered by the newspaper owners.

The basis of the deal was a scheme to bring together the two companies’ regional newspaper groups under the control of Trinity Mirror. In return Trinity would have offered a mixture of cash and shares to DMGT, giving it a strategic shareholder for the first time since the days of Robert Maxwell.

Negotiations between the two sides came to a halt, although Daily Mail executives have told their counterparts at Trinity that negotiations could resume in future.

• Times: Trinity Mirror shares suffer record 28 per cent fall
• Tracking UK newspaper share prices with Twitter
• Sky News: Trinity Mirror approached Mecom for merger
• Marc Reeves: Why is GMG selling the cash cow?
• #FollowJourn: @davidhiggerson/head of multimedia, Trinity Mirror

Interim management statements published this week by Johnston Press and Trinity Mirror suggest declines in advertising revenues appear to be slowing for both publishers.

In a statement published today, Trinity Mirror said trading since the half year “has remained volatile due to the fragile economic environment and the uncertainty resulting from the Government spending review”.

The Board envisages that the trading environment will remain challenging over the remainder of the year and into 2011, however, it anticipates that the rate of decline in revenues will improve.

The group recorded declines in ‘adjusted’ advertising revenue of 4.6 per cent year-on-year (excluding the acquisition of GMG Regional Media), but overall the company recorded actual advertising growth of 13 per cent in the 17 week period (including the acquisition).

It added that full ownership of Fish4 will boost its digital recruitment ad revenues by £3 million in the first full year.

This report followed Johnston Press’s statement yesterday which reported a decline in total advertising revenue for the second half of the year to date of 5.4 per cent (year-on-year). This represents an improvement on the first half decline of 6.3 per cent, the report adds.

The decline in print advertising revenues excluding recruitment in the second half to date is 2.5 per cent, with the decline in recruitment advertising in the same period being 29.1 per cent.

In order to reduce costs the publisher announced it would be closing its printing operation in Limerick. A spokesperson told Journalism.co.uk this would impact on 29 part-time workers.

• Trinity Mirror reports 10 per cent drop in advertising revenue
• Johnston Press’ ad revenues feel effects of recession
• Mail Online helps DMGT to significant increase in digital revenue
• NYT second-quarter operating profit more than twice 2009 figure
• US newspaper ad revenue decline slows

As reported by The Business Desk West Midlands earlier this week, Trinity Mirror is launching a new freesheet as a sister paper to the paid-for Birmingham Post, which changed from a daily to weekly publication last year.

Birmingham Post Lite will be delivered to around 18,000 homes in the south Birmingham areas of Harborne and Moseley and will contain a selection of the Birmingham Post’s editorial content and material from its Post Property magazine, says a release.

The new newspaper will not carry the paid-for Post’s specialised business
and financial news. Instead it will combine south Birmingham news with the features and leisure content from the Post’s award-winning team.

The BusinessDesk (TBD) had the date pegged as April 22, but suggests the launch is a direct response to plans for a new rival title, the Birmingham Press, from newspaper entrepreneur Chris Bullivant.

“The title (…) is intended to go head-to-head with the Press in the battle to secure advertising from the city’s mid-market estate agents,” says TBD’s report.

• FT.com: Birmingham Post ‘might cease daily publication’
• Former Birmingham Post editor to launch West Midlands business site
• News International to launch Sunday version of the Sun on 29 April, sources say
• Trinity Mirror announces exit for Birmingham Post and Mail editors
• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: US title P-G launches members-only site

Trinity Mirror has made an out-of-court settlement with the British National Party after a breach of copyright in an article published last November.

The piece included a picture of BNP West Wales party organiser Roger Phillips, taken by a party official, which the BNP said was taken from Facebook without permission.

Full story at this link…

• Revised guidance on live court reporting due Wednesday
• Update on cuts at Trinity Mirror’s Media Wales – 15 (.2) jobs at risk
• 13.2 jobs could go at Trinity Mirror’s Media Wales; NUJ members to hold strike ballot
• Trinity Mirror update: One weekly could be rescued at TM North West and Wales, while exec share row rumbles on
• The Bookseller: Supreme Court resurrects $18m settlement between publishers and freelancers

I’ve had a little play with today’s Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic’s (ABCe) six-monthly multi-platform report for July – December 2009 and produced a few graphs.

Johnston Press was top of the traffic charts with 384,016 daily unique browsers – partly thanks to the Scotsman which attracted 86,694 daily browsers on average over the past six months. In second place for daily unique browsers (which ABCe now prioritises over monthly statistics as a better measure of site popularity) came Newsquest with 320,975 browsers. Closely behind, Trinity Mirror, which recorded 287,130. Of the bigger groups, it was Northcliffe in fourth position with 256,123. GMG saw the biggest drop-off overall when period-on-period monthly unique browser figures were compared: -17.8 per cent.

For the next multiplatform report, it could be all change: GMG regional titles will be part of Trinity Mirror, following the sale agreement earlier this month; and the effect of Johnston Press’ pay walls, launched in November may well have kicked in. They seem to have had a limited effect on this period’s statistics, but it’s worth noting that traffic had fallen for the Johnston Press network from 6,985,175 uniques in October to 6,161,875 in December 2009: down by over ten per cent in two months. Traffic had been dropping off since July, however, well before the pay walls were introduced and of course, the group has only rolled out the scheme over a few of its smaller sites so far.  Unfortunately, the trialled sites don’t feature in the individual site break-down.

This chart shows the period-on-period change for each newspaper group, July to end of December 2009. (ie. compared with the previous six months)

Unique daily browsers, by regional newspaper group:

GMG Regional Network

Trinity Mirror

Iliffe News & Media Ltd (note that the largest column is its entire network overall, which includes other sites as well)

Johnston Press

Newsquest

Midlands News

• ABCes: Independent.co.uk records biggest increase in daily browsers
• Trinity Mirror reports 10 per cent drop in advertising revenue
• Johnston Press’ ad revenues feel effects of recession
• IFNC update: CN Group, STV, ITN and Bauer in race for news consortia pilots
• Newspaper Society: Round-up of record web traffic for local media titles covering riots

More than a 100 NUJ members at the Manchester Evening News and its weekly counterparts are forming a joint chapel to strengthen the union’s rights and help prevent job losses.

The move follows the recent announcement of the MEN Media titles’ sale to Trinity Mirror and the union’s fears that it could lead to future job cuts.

NUJ also raised concerns that moving journalists from the communities they serve poses a threat to media diversity and plurality in the north west.

Journalism.co.uk reported last week that Trinity Mirror wants MEN staff to move from the Manchester base to Oldham, a proposal that was critised by MEN union members.

MEN mother of chapel Judy Gordon and MEN Weeklies mother of chapel Bethan Dorsett said in a joint statement: “Though traditionally the MEN and weeklies have been separate chapels, it is common sense to bring them together. After all we are now under one roof.

“A strong, united chapel made up of over 100 journalists can take positive action to prevent any job losses or other damaging changes that our new owners may want to implement at a later stage.”

NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear welcomes the move: “This is a big step forward for our members in Manchester and gives them added strength at a very important time.”

The deal with Trinity Mirror is to be completed on March 28.

• Round-up: Reaction to GMG Regionals sale to Trinity Mirror
• 13.2 jobs could go at Trinity Mirror’s Media Wales; NUJ members to hold strike ballot
• MEN Media/NUJ update: 11 compulsory editorial redundancies; five jobs saved
• NUJ: Ray Tindle to meet with Parlimentary representatives over Enfield dispute
• NUJ: Journalists demand ‘immediate talks’ as 22 jobs face cut at Media Wales

Trinity Mirror’s acquisition of Guardian Media Group’s regional businesses, including Manchester Evening News publisher MEN Media, and plans to relocate MEN Media staff to Oldham has stirred mass discussion amongst media commentators online. Below are links breaking down the fundamental aspects of the story:

The Guardian’s Steve Busfield covers the imminent MEN move, reporting claims by Carolyn McCall, the chief executive of Guardian Media Groups, that the £44.8m sale of GMG is in the best interests of GMG Regional Media.

Holdthefrontpage.co.uk has a statement from Bethan Dorsett, organiser of the NUJ chapel at MEN Media Weeklies, and Judith Gordon, director of the MEN chapel, describing their concerns for MEN staff.

The Drum covers the various reactions produced by the deal, questioning whether Trinity got a good deal or gained a dying media group, including comments from analyst Jim Chisholm, who told the Drum it was “a great deal for Trinity Mirror” though “not such a great reflection of the way the regional print industry is today viewed”.

On Press Gazette, the financial benefits of the deal to GMG and Trinity Mirror – pointing towards the FT’s analysis of the sale, which considers the issue of consolidation, but comes down in favour of TM saying it was a bargain for the group.

Crain’s Manchester business takes notice of the exclusion of Channel M in the GMG sale to Trinity Mirror. Channel M lost GMG a significant amount of money since it’s launch and its segregation has left questions being asked about the channels future.

• GMG sells regional media business to Trinity Mirror for £44.8m
• GMG Regional Media chief exec confirms talks without naming Trinity Mirror
• NUJ members in Manchester join forces after MEN sale
• Former Trinity Mirror employee Craig McGill on the GMG Regionals sale
• Media Guardian: ‘Massive reduction’ in GNM’s loss next year, says chief executive McCall