Category Archives: Local media

NUJ: More strife for Newsquest as four more NUJ centres vote to strike

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Protests at Newsquest-owned titles across the country continue this week as members of the National Union of Journalists at four more centres vote in favour of strike action.

According to a release from the NUJ today, members at Newsquest Blackburn, Bradford, Bolton and York have all voted for indsutrial action.

The new votes follow two days of strike action carried out by members at the Brighton Argus and Southern Daily Echo this week, the second round of industrial action for both titles.

Union members are taking action against a continuing pay freeze, redundancies and closure of the pension scheme to future accrual.

More than 90 per cent of members at Newsquest Bradford voted in favour of strike action in a recent ballot while all voters supported action short of a strike, the release adds.

All NUJ members who took part in the ballot at Newsquest Blackburn have voted overwhelmingly for strike action and action short of a strike. NUJ members at Newsquest Bolton have also voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action.

… NUJ members at Newsquest York today voted overwhelmingly for strike action and action short of a strike.

According to the release the newspaper titles within these centres includes:

  • Newsquest Bradford – Bradford Telegraph & Argus, Ilkley Gazette, Wharfedale & Airedale Observer, Craven Herald and the Keighley News.
  • Newsquest Bolton and Newsquest Blackburn – Bolton News and the Bury Times Group weekly series (the Bury Times, Radcliffe Times and The Guide covering Prestwich & Whitefield) and the Lancashire Telegraph, Burnley Citizen, Blackburn Citizen, Chorley Citizen, Bury Journal, Bolton Journal and Westmorland Gazette.
  • Newsquest York – the Press and the Gazette & Herald.

NUJ members at Newsquest Warrington as well as members at the Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times in Scotland have also voted to ballot for industrial action.

The NUJ parliamentary group this week launched an Early Day Motion in support of NUJ members at Newsquest, calling on the company to “enter into meaningful discussions with the union at all levels to resolve the disputes by protecting jobs and investing in journalism”.

paidContent:UK: Web could play deciding role in local media mergers, says Ofcom

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Interesting report from paidContent:UK on what role the web will play in competition issues in proposed local media mergers according to Ofcom. Summarised by paidContent:UK and from Ofcom’s final Local Media Assessment guidance published as part of a review of the current media merger landscape:

Ofcom will factor in any online local media operators, when considering whether there is sufficient competition to two merging parties.

In theory, that could see Trinity Mirror, Northcliffe and Global Radio, in the event of any such merger, arguing that their local papers and stations would not dominate local ad sales because sites like Gumtree or Google also sell local ads in the same patch.

Full story on paidContent:UK at this link…

paidContent: Northcliffe plans to tap into hyperlocal network for advertising revenue

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The Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) says its regional publisher Northcliffe will “tap its LocalPeople hyperlocal network” in an attempt to reach more advertisers online, paidContent reports.

According to the group’s preliminary results published yesterday, Northcliffe recorded several declines in the year ending October 2010, with underlying revenues down £16 million (six per cent), reported revenues have dropped by 8 per cent and advertising revenues were also down by 7 per cent.

Presenting the results yesterday morning, CEO Martin Morgan told investment analysts that the group is “trying to give ourselves a good shot at capturing local information markets”, paidContent reports.

“We’re going to be taking the technology platform we’ve built (for LocalPeople) and merging it with the ThisIs sites,” Morgan told analysts. “So local people can concentrate on finding a garage, finding a plumber in such a way that provides a long tail of local advertisers – people who aren’t advertising in the local press, we think we can get them in.

Chandlers thank their local media and explain decision to sell story to nationals

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Kent couple Paul and Rachel Chandler, who were released by their Somali pirate kidnappers earlier this month after being held hostage for more than a year, have reportedly written to local papers to explain their decision to sell the story to the national press.

According to a report on Archant KOS Media’s Kent News website they received a letter from the couple saying that they had decided to sign exclusive media deals in order to “repay certain immediate debts resulting from this unfortunate and troubling episode”. It’s understood the deals have been made with one national newspaper and one broadcaster.

In a letter sent to media organisations – including Archant KOS Media, publishers of this website – the couple thank the media for their support and respecting an injunction issued in the summer which prevented speculation on their situation.

But they said: “We are not a large and wealthy corporation and have had to take the decision to go with one broadcaster and one national daily newspaper”.

Earlier this month Journalism.co.uk spoke to Chris Britcher, editor of Archant KOS Media’s the Tunbridge Wells on Saturday and Sunday. At the time he said there was a “ferocious appetite out there” to find out more about the couple’s ordeal, but that the paper would respect their wishes at all times.

They may well decide that, actually, after a flurry of publicity, they just want to return to their lives, out of the glare of publicity. If they do, we will obviously respect that, perhaps only returning to them for significant anniversaries etc.

Jon Slattery: ‘You can slice the salami only so many times,’ warns ex-Argus man

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Former Brighton Argus deputy editor Frank le Duc guest posts on Jon Slattery’s blog about the recent strikes at the Argus and other Newsquest titles, and about the challenges facing regional publishers from new local competition.

The difficulty for companies like Newsquest is that their profits are not coming from a resurgence in advertising revenues but a ruthless cutting of costs.

Newsquest has used a salami-slicing technique which has its limitations. You can slice the salami only so many times before there’s no meat left.

Full post at this link…

Brighton Argus: Twitter account and strike blog boost picket line protests

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Today journalists from the Newsquest-owned Brighton Argus took to the picket line for the second day of strikes, in protest at plans to relocate their subbing operations to Southampton and the loss of seven jobs at the title.

The strike action on both days went beyond the picket line in Brighton, with campaigning staff using social media to spread the word. The group produced a Twitter account @argus_strike, posting videos, pictures and comments throughout the action.

There was also a Argus strike blog set up in the lead up to the action, featuring information on why the staff were striking, campaign links as well as vox-pops with readers. Web editor Jo Wadsworth even called on the title’s community correspondents to support the action by not crossing a virtual picket line, and postponing any submissions to the site until the weekend.

The sub-editors made redundant say they were originally told today would be their last day, but told Journalism.co.uk yesterday they may be asked to work on for another two to four weeks to help with the movement of production down to Southampton.

Members of the National Union of Journalists, local politicians and other supporters stood outside the offices in the south-east town, with the number of journalists estimated to reflect around three quarters of the editorial team at the picket’s peak.

Journalism.co.uk produced this video report, speaking to members of the union and those losing their jobs.

Yahoo rolling out new US local network in beta

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Yahoo has started to roll out a new local product offering dedicated pages of news, events and deals for a number of locations in the US, lostremote.com reported this week.

Beta pages for Yahoo Local have emerged for San Francisco, Brooklyn and Michigan, which can be viewed by city or neighbourhood and feature a list of aggregated posts.

Many of the headlines, especially at the neighborhood level, originate from neighborhood blogs. You can post an event, or sign up with Associated Content to become a paid contributor. “We have launched Yahoo! local in a few neighborhoods and towns to refine the experience while gathering more content for the next set of cities,” explains the site.

Journalism.co.uk reported earlier this week that Yahoo had launched a new contributor network which enables its users to publish content onto its sites, following its acquisition of Associated Content earlier this year.

Enders’ Douglas McCabe: Regional newspaper forecast was ‘unnecessarily pessimistic’

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A media analyst from Enders Analysis has said the company’s prediction that half of the UK’s 1,300 regional newspapers would close in five years was “unnecessarily pessimistic”. Founder Claire Enders made the forecast in evidence to the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee in June last year.

“You aren’t seeing closures on anything like that scale, and we haven’t seen the all-important dailies closing,” Douglas McCabe from Enders told the Society of Editors conference today.

Read the full report on Douglas McCabe’s comments on HoldtheFrontPage.co.uk.

Telegraph: Former head of Trinity Mirror Television to put forward local TV proposal

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The former managing director of Trinity Mirror Television, Richard Horwood, is to put forward a formal proposal to the government review on local television in relation to a single TV channel which would favour local programming, according to the Telegraph.

It is reported that Horwood has already spoken to head of UK investment banking at Lazard Nicholas Shott, who is responsible for carrying out the review on the commercial viability of local television in the UK for culture, media and sport secretary Jeremy Hunt.

This week Mr Horwood will put a formal proposal to the review involving a single TV channel available on multi-platforms and combining local and national programming and adverts.

The idea is to create a national framework of programming with the ability to “opt out” of the national schedule in certain towns in favour of local programmes and adverts.