Denis O’Brien, the rebel shareholder in Independent News & Media, is demanding a meeting of shareholders ‘to order the immediate sale or closure’ of the group’s UK newspapers – the Independent and Independent on Sunday, reports MediaGuardian.
O’Brien has tabled eight resolutions for the meeting including the above and calls for group chairman Brian Hillery to resign.
Last week it was reported that the group as a whole had fallen into the red.
The newspaper group fell into the red in the first six months of 2009 – a result of a massive drop in advertising revenues, reports MediaGuardian.
The group has reported a pre-tax loss of €48.5 million (approximately £42.7 million) for the six months to the end of June – compare this with last year’s profit of €96.8 million (£85.2 million) – and cited the costs of reducing staff, writing down the value of its newspaper titles and other ‘exceptional items’.
Advertising revenues for the group fell by 25.8 per cent from the last report to €608.8 million (£535.6 million).
Independent.co.uk will now stream radio broadcasts from Bauer in a syndication deal.
A widget on the site will launch a radio player streaming KISS 100 and MAGIC 105.4.
Earlier this month the BBC announced a free video-sharing deal with several UK national newspaper websites.
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On the Editors’ Blog
The Independent has launched a new app for the iPhone, it announced on its own site.
“Once launched the App automatically downloads all the articles and images for offline reading, talking around a minute on a Wi-Fi connection and a few minutes on a standard mobile connection, making it possible to read the latest Independent news even when without mobile reception. Articles can be read while the download continues.”
The app includes 12 categories of articles, among them: World and UK news, Sport, Business, Football, Opinion, People, Politics, Technology, Arts and Entertainment and Environment.
Full announcement at this link…
The Independent launched its mobile site in early July.
Journalism.co.uk feels like its gone back in time today – specifically to autumn last year when regional newspaper groups, unions and industry bodies were voicing unanimous opposition to the BBC’s plans to increase its local video news content.
Well, another year, another video plan – and more opposition.
Yesterday the corporation announced an agreement to share news video from four subject areas with the Guardian, Telegraph, Daily Mail and Independent websites. The clips will appear in a BBC-branded player and run alongside the papers’ own news coverage.
In the announcement, the corporation suggested it would extend the plans to other newspaper websites – and asked third parties to register their interest.
The reaction
Welcomed by its launch partners (The Telegraph described the deal as ‘a step in the right direction’) – the plans were quickly denounced by commercial rivals ITN:
“The BBC’s plans to offer free video content to newspaper websites risk undermining the demand for content from independent news providers, potentially undercutting a very important revenue stream,” said ITN CEO John Hardie in a release.
“The pressure on commercial news suppliers has never been greater which is why ITN has led the way in opening up valuable new lines of business, and the BBC’s latest move risks pulling the rug from under us.”
According to a MediaGuardian report, News International says the arrangement is far from a ‘free deal’ for the papers, but rather free marketing for the BBC, which will lead to less diffentiated content on newspaper websites in the UK.
Meanwhile the Press Association said it had spoken with the BBC Trust about the plans before they were announced and was hoping for a market impact assessment – a process it says cannot now be completed because of yesterday’s launch. In a statement given to both Press Gazette and MediaGuardian, a spokeswoman for the PA said there were other ways for the BBC to work with commercial rivals, such as by sharing facilities.
The PA launched its own video newswire for newspapers earlier this year and has said the BBC’s plans undermine investment in video by commercial players.
The questions
Arguably, providing a pool of news video for diary events/supplementary content could free up the titles’ staff to cover original content and produce more multimedia of their own. A similar argument to the PA’s recent announcement of a ‘public service reporting’ trial.
One question that should be asked – hinted at in Alick Mighall’s blog post on the matter – how will the commercial details be hammered out? Will the BBC add pre-roll ads for BBC programming to the clips; and what if a pay wall is erected in front of the video players?
Econsultancy’s Graham Chorlton takes a look at the Independent’s newly launched mobile site:
“The look and feel of the site is fine, with the gold and white colour scheme echoing that of the main site. It does lack the visual appeal of both The Guardian and FT.com mobile sites, but keeping it simple is fine for a mobile site that people will use on a variety of handsets and connection speeds.”
The Independent has tried its hand at an interactive map plotting the challenges currently being faced, and those looming in the future, by the newspaper industry:
(Apologies if some of the argument bubbles are out of the frame – just drag on the arrows to bring them into view)
Good summary of the key issues using DebateGraph – the map draws on arguments from Jeff Jarvis, Roy Greenslade and Gavin O’Reilly amongst others. Some links to some prominent reports/blog posts/comment pieces expressing these arguments would be a great addition.
You can rate the arguments made and add new points after registering. As users rank ideas, the strongest and weakest arguments will be shown by the size of the arrows connecting them.
“Anne Scott-James was one of the first top-flight women journalists to cross the barrier between writing principally for and about women to more universal topics. From 1960 to 1968 she wrote a widely-read column in the Daily Mail, a precursor of the legions of opinionated female columnists who now proliferate in the national press.”
You know how media companies get a hard time for how they treat the ‘workies’? Especially because most internships are unpaid – you might get expenses if you’re lucky. Well, Huffington Post has gone one step futher, by putting up an internship for charity auction – offering bidders the chance to ‘jumpstart their career in the blogosphere’. Ten bids had been placed at the time of writing; the last one was for $13,000. All proceeds go to the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights.
- Gawker’s take on the HuffPo lot at this link…
- Interesting spot from the past: Anya Kamenetz writing at HuffPo in 2006 on ‘the high cost of unpaid internships’:
“Now you see businesses of all sizes taking on interns, openly for the free labor. I have been at & heard of publications & publishers where they save the slush pile all year for the summer interns to go through. And Gawker, which doesn’t pay its own interns, loves to post job ads wherein well-paid magazine editors, artists, and others seek full-time assistants for free.”
It reminds Journalism.co.uk of prizes offered in the the Independent’s annual charity auctions. In those, you bid to hang out with the Indy’s editors, correspondents and columnists (yes, people coughed up good money to hang out with the likes of Street-Porter, Emin and Kelner), and the lucky victors (a couple listed below) once got to spend a whole day at the office!
Mr Vogels was a lucky winner in 2003:
Lot 1: Hold the Front Page
Ever wondered how a daily newspaper gets put together? Come and see how it works from morning conference to the nail-biting deadline. Meet the staff and marvel at their cool professionalism, creative brilliance and unusual fashion sense.
Winning bid: £1,750, Frederik Vogels, London.
And Amar enjoyed a similar pleasure in 2005:
Lot 1: A Day at the Paper Ever wondered how a daily national newspaper gets put together? Come and see how it works for one exciting day, hearing the news agenda at morning conference, watching the tension build as the deadline hour approaches. Meet the glamorous staff and marvel at their camaraderie and coolness under pressure. Winning bid: amar, £2,251.11. (Last year’s winning bid: £1,101)