Author Archives: Helen Martin

Response to the ABCs results: How are mag subscriptions and sales faring in the recession?

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Subscription sales are up according to figures from online magazine retailer The Magazine Group, which runs sites for WH Smith, Books Direct and others; while last week the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) reported only a slight drop in overall magazine sales.

But individual titles have seen circulations plummet this. Do subscriptions offer a way to avoid such a loss in sales? Here, we examine the results of the two reports:

Last week’s report from The Magazine Group suggests subscription sales are on the up after analysing figures for the more than 800 titles from 140 publishers it offers. The findings are derived from more than 100,000 subscriptions sold by the group – comparing purchasing patterns from the first half of 2008 with those for the same period this year.

Meanwhile overall ABC results for January to June 2009 suggested that magazine circulation for the UK consumer magazine market is only 1.9 per cent down on the previous period.

But individual titles fared worse in last weeks ABCs: results suggested that most glossy magazines have lost sales (one of the worst hit has been FHM down 16.2 per cent). There are exceptions – such Men’s Health (up 2.1 per cent YOY), which has taken FHM’s place as top selling title.

According to the Magazine Group’s report, women’s glossies are also suffering with the biggest fall in subscriptions amongst the retailer’s titles. The ABC results show that overall sales for women’s weeklies are down 4.6 per cent year-on-year.

In contrast celebrity weeklies are doing well in subscriptions for the Magazine Group, which claimed that magazines with competitive prices were faring the best.

The public’s concerns and interest in the recession are reflected in the ABC report by the general increase in sales for news and business magazines compared with other sectors –  MoneyWeek (which has subscribers making up 96 per cent of readers, according to MediaGuardian) was up 15.3 per cent year-on-year, while the Week gained 10.3 per cent in sales.

Up 0.6 per cent year-on-year, Private Eye remains the biggest-selling title in the news and finance business sector.

According to The Magazine Group, TV, computer games and music magazines are also doing well – it seems that more people are trying to save money by staying in.

Speaking at the FIPP congress earlier this year, leading magazine publishers suggested that personalisation may be a key factor for future magazine revenue streams. This sentiment is reflected in the Magazine Group’s report, as specialist magazines are shown to be doing well. The figures suggested an increase of more than 20 per cent in the sales of home improvement, craft and gardening titles.

But, it may simply come down to money-saving to explain the drop in glossies, but rise in such specialist titles. Economising Brits seem to be fighting the recession by trying to make their money go further. Not surprisingly, the ABC report suggests that specialist titles such as house renovation and housing have fallen in circulation, as have health and beauty magazines.

“What these figures (The Magazine Group) show is that magazine consumers are looking for value. Titles that offer ways to combat the credit crunch are thriving,” says Don Brown of The Magazine Group in a release.

“With sales falling on the newsstand many magazines are having a tough time, but with big name brands offering discounts and free gifts, savvy subscribers have great choice of bargains.”

The magazine Group claims to generally have a rise in their subscriptions, compared to many falls in the ABC analysis on individual title’s sales. Does this suggest that subscription deals might be able to save/maintain some magazines?

Lone Star defies downward trend in revised ABC results

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The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) has today brought out its revised figures for national newspaper circulation in the UK, reducing the headline circulations of titles including the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and Financial Times in the light of an investigation into ‘bulk copies’ distributed by Dawson Media Direct, for the London Evening Standard, Mail on Sunday and Sunday Telegraph.

The UK newspaper circulation body revised the figures because audit trails for ‘bulks’ did not comply with ABC rules.

Earlier this year, the Financial Times reduced its use of bulks, and this week Guardian News and Media announced that it was currently ditching its bulk distribution completely.

A brief summary of today’s ABC results:

  • The Sunday Times was the only ‘quality’ Sunday title to post a year-on-year rise in sales (2.74 per cent). On average the ‘quality’ Sunday titles posted a 2.77 per cent year-on-year fall.  The Independent on Sunday posted the biggest year-on-year drop – 19.98 per cent.
  • All the daily titles audited posted a year-on-year drop in sales, apart from The Star which increased its circulation by 20.12 per cent compared with July 2008.
  • The Sun recorded a tiny drop of 0.4 per cent year-on-year and although the Daily Mirror was down 7.16 per cent compared with last year’s figures, month-on-month the title’s sales rose by 0.73 per cent.

A more in-depth analysis of these results is available on Guardian.co.uk.

Skillset’s report digested: Is there a skills gap amongst new journalism recruits?

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As reported yesterday, Skillset, the training and skills organisation for creative industries, has released a new report suggesting a critical skills gap in new journalism recruits to the newspaper and magazine industries. The new report is a culmination of year-long research and suggests the gap has been exposed by the advancement of digital technology in the sectors.

Some key reactions and findings of the research are rounded up below:

  • Skillset commented in the Guardian that traditional skills are ‘becoming even more important so that customers are prepared to pay for high quality content’.
  • The latest multimedia and technical skills are critical to freelancers in the current environment, the report suggested.
  • The general message from the report is that journalists need to adapt to the huge impact that the recession and technological change have had on the publishing industry. A spokesperson from Skillset spoke to Journalism.co.uk about the importance of applying core skills such as editing and interviewing to new technical skills. Skillset also place an emphasis on creativity and the importance of flexiblity.
  • An additional survey previously published by the body,  the Convergence Journalism Skills survey, discusses how in the future the merging worlds of print, radio, TV and online will require journalists to be confident working across these different platforms.
  • Skillset’s executive director of policy and development, Kate O’Connor, quoted in Guardian, said training can be one of the first things neglected in difficult financial times.  O’Connor underlined the importance of investing in the future. She also pointed out how vital it is for journalists to learn these new digital skills ‘if the industry is to survive and thrive’.
  • Loraine Davies, director of the Periodical Training Council, told Journalism.co.uk ‘that graduates from the 14 PTC accredited journalism courses have all the skills they need to make a meaningful contribution to the brand from the outset’.
  • But Davies recognised that students key skills are not at the expected level when they begin their courses. The solution? ”More must be done earlier in the education process to ensure students have grasped the basics.”

There appears to be a consensus among professionals that skills training needs to be revised in order for journalists to compete and succeed in this developing media industry. One of the key messages to journalists in the Skillset report was not only to fine tune their core and technological skills, but to be flexible and adapt well to change.

As Gail Rebuck, Skillset board member, told the Guardian: “It is important that the industry understands and moves with the market so the skills gap this report has identified does not continue to grow.”

Related: The National Council for the Training of Journalists’ (NCTJ) skills survey from November last year.

Sheffield photojournalism students refuse exam retake

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As reported by HoldtheFrontPage yesterday, some photojournalism graduates from Sheffield College have been told they must resit one of their end of year exams after a mistake made by their college. More than half of the students are reportedly boycotting the proposed retake.

The college recently wrote to around 20 students to inform them that they would need to resit a law paper taken on June 4 2009.

The National Council for Training of Journalists (NCTJ) invalidated the paper because of a ‘procedural blunder’, it told Journalism.co.uk. This is thought to centre around the fact that the computers used to sit the exam had access to the web. This is the first time the college has used computers for the law exam.

In a press statement given to Journalism.co.uk, Andrew Cropley, executive director of the Norton College campus, which is home to the photography, media and journalism courses, said an investigation into how this error had occurred had been launched. He emphasised that the students were in no way to blame for the mistake.

“The college will ensure that future exams are taken in strict compliance with NCTJ procedures,” added Cropley.

“The college is totally committed to getting this right. We are proud of our press photography and photojournalism course, which has a national reputation for training some of the best media photographers in the country.”

Many students are now busy in full-time jobs, some are even thought to have left the country. Paul Johnson, now working as a press photographer at the Times and Star in Workington, told HTFP: “I am supposed to be doing my NCE in November, but I don’t now when I’m going to be able to fit it all in.”

The Sheffield course is thought to be the longest running photojournalism course in the UK.

To reduce inconvenience as much as possible, the college will reimburse all travel expenses and will create individual exam dates for students. Despite this, students are forming a protest against the ordered retake including a Facebook group against the move.

A spokesperson for the NCTJ gave the following statement to Journalism.co.uk: “In fairness to all candidates, and to protect the integrity of the exams and the industry’s standards for journalism, centres must ensure candidates sit NCTJ exams under the required conditions.”

As of yet there is no further information regarding the status of the protest.

If you are affected by the exam retakes please do get in touch with either office [at] journalism.co.uk or laura [at] journalism.co.uk.

Pagemasters editorial outsourcing spreads to the US and Canada

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Editorial outsourcing firm Pagemasters has announced a partnership with the Canadian Press to provide a range of production services, including design, sub-editing and headline writing, to titles in the US and Canada.

The new division, Pagemasters North America, will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Canadian Press, which already provides pagination services to Canadian daily newspapers including The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star.

The move by Australian Associated Press (AAP), the national news agency of Australia, which owns the editing company, follows a contract with Telegraph Media Group announced in January to provide sub-editing services for the Daily and Sunday Telegraph’s weekend supplements.

In a previous article in The Sunday Morning Herald, Pagemasters managing director Bruce Davidson commented on how useful a time zone difference is for the editing process: “The Telegraph can deliver pages at the end of their day, and when they come in the next morning we have completed the work.”

In today’s release, Davidson said: “The launch of Pagemasters North America is a major development and I believe one which has the potential to lead to significant changes in the editorial production model for US and Canadian newspapers.

“We will be heavily involved with The Canadian Press in setting up editorial production centres in North America, working closely with newspaper publishers as they grapple with the radical changes sweeping the industry.”

The printing press versus Jesus… what year would you vote for?

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The invention of the Printing Press in 1439 is currently beating Jesus’ birth in an Intelligent Life online poll on the most important year in history.

With 34 per cent of the votes so far Gutenberg’s press is leading the birth of Jesus (24 per cent), the discovery of DNA (8 per cent), the fall of Nazism (8 per cent) and the beginning of the United States of America (6 per cent).

The poll of more than 2,600 people run by the Economist title, was sparked by an article by Andrew Marr. He and five Economist journalists came up with a rough shortlist for what they believed to be the most important years of all time.

Readers have been asked to write in with their own suggestions, which have included the year photography was invented, the French Revolution in 1789 and the birth of the World Wide Web. You can vote for an existing topic or suggest your own at this link.

Others have a slightly more egotistical angle, a fair number saw the year they were born as the most important…

GNM abandons the distribution of bulks

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Guardian News and Media announced today that it will abandon the distribution of ‘bulks’.

GNM sold ‘bulk’ bundles of its papers to hotels and airlines for a nominal fee per copy to the businesses, but free to the readers. This sampling method was a way of tempting new readers towards the publications.

But bulk sales only contributed to a fraction of the Guardian and Observer’s overall sales figures compared to other newspaper groups, said a release from GNM.

“To a greater or lesser degree bulk sales are used by newspaper groups to prop up their ABC [Audit Bureau of Circulations] figure.  Yet their credibility in the ad community is low and for those affected by the recent investigation into airline bulks that credibility has been undermined further,” Joe Clark, GNM director and general manager, newspapers, said in the release.

“We are abandoning this practice in order to present a clearer, more honest picture of our sales performance to advertisers and to reinforce the quality of our product to readers.  The success of our subscription scheme has proved the value of rewarding loyal readers and prompted us to question the merit of subsidising a free copy for an occasional reader.

“In short dropping this traditional, and in our view, outmoded practice is a win-win move.  We hope that others will follow our lead.”

On Guardian.co.uk, Roy Greenslade celebrated the decision after a 10-year battle to convince the papers to drop the bulks.

“This so-called ‘sampling exercise’ was anything other than a way to ensure that, in a declining market, headline sales figures remained artificially high,” he wrote.

Over the past 10 years publishers have become increasingly aware that sampling had little effect on their sales.

As Greenslade reports: Trinity Mirror and Express Mirrors were the first to give up the practice, while News International never used bulks for its main titles, The Sun and News of the World, but did for The Times and The Sunday Times.

The Financial Times has also begun to lessen its use of bulks; whereas The Telegraph Media Group continues to use bulks to attract new readers, he adds. In addition The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday have increased their reliance on bulks.

PRCA launches petition against NLA’s backlink charging plans

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The Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA) has launched a petition on Twitter calling on the Newspaper Licensing Agency to abandon recent proposals to charge organisations that forward and receive URLs of newspaper articles.

There’s been some strong criticism from the industry about the plans already and the PRCA has been consulting stakeholders and members on their views.

“The PRCA has proactively communicated the NLA’s proposals to agencies and the disbelief and anger they have generated extends far beyond our membership. While the NLA has accepted our offer to help them consult with the industry, they need to show this is a genuine consultation by changing their proposals and being transparent about their future pricing plans,” said Richard Ellis, communications director at the PRCA, which represents PR agencies and the wider industry, in a statement on the organisation’s website.

Follow the petition’s progress on the PRCA’s twitter account.

Archant announces 61.1% drop in profits

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The Norwich-based publisher Archant has announced a 61.1 per cent fall in operating profits for the year up to June 2009, despite a rise in digital revenues.

Archant, which runs a range of daily and weekly titles in East Anglia, London and the south west of the UK, made £14.8 million in operating cuts so far this year, according to the figures released over the weekend.

The group’s newspaper and printing operations saw a 25.3 per cent decrease in profits over the same period to £49.1 million, while magazine profits were down by 22.2 per cent to £21.7 million.

In contrast, the company’s digital revenues increased by 18.9 per cent – but this rise was not enough to offset the downturn in traditional revenues for the publisher.

“Adjusting to this new and different world and restoring levels of profitability will take time. We remain confident of our ability to exploit the many opportunities to do so, utilising our powerful brands and building on our relationships with our readers and advertisers,” said chairman Richard Jewson in the release.