Buried in Mark Day’s piece in The Australian on Monday speculating that Lachlan Murdoch may take over from his dad as Chairman of News Limited is this when he is writing about new News Limited boss Kim Williams:
He sees a need to reinvent the way newspapers are delivered and sold, which means a new approach to relationships with the newsagency business – protected from competition for more than half a century.
Seriously Mark? I am shocked that you would have the audacity to write that. It is grossly inaccurate I am disappointed that News Limited would bless the publishing of such a misleading statement, unless they have done so because it serves another purpose for the organisation.
Newsagents are not protected.
News Limited ushered in a new relationship with newsagents in 1999 when the Howard conservative government ushered in deregulation of the distribution of newspapers and magazines, stripping newsagents of the protection of the monopoly system created by the publishers decades earlier.
Mark Day would know this so why would he write what he did?
News Limited started changing its relationship further with newsagents around three years ago. Some changes have been implemented and the newsagency channel waits for more changes due in the coming months.
News Limited has financially punished newsagents by not increasing cover price in line with CPI and refusing permission for newsagents to pass on reasonable fuel and other cost rises in delivery fees. The end result is that newsagents in the home delivery business have become the working poor, often making less than minimum wage … and sometimes delivering newspapers which do not meet occupational health and safety requirements. So, not only is the pay for some below what could be paid an employee, the work is sometimes unsafe.
The cover price of the Daily Telegraph has not changed in fourteen years. How is this protection?
Yet Mark Day prefers to make out that newsagents are protected.
Over recent years, News Limited has entered into agreements with non newsagents to take over business won and nurtured by newsagents. I have written here before about News taking delivery business from hotels, business newsagents won from their own hard work. How is this protection?
Newsagents are not protected and have not been for thirteen years.
I am disappointed that Mark Day has written and The Australian published such a false and ignorant statement. Maybe that they did speaks to how they see newsagents in the future.
Will The Australian publish a retraction? I doubt it. Will newsagents complain? I doubt it. We will be too scared that they may take more business from us.
I have read and re-read the Day article and the contentious passage several times. He seems to be inferring that new News Limited CEO is the person to break our “protection” and thereby reinvent the distribution of newspapers. If I am wrong maybe Day or someone at News can comment here and explain how. They won’t – but I leave the opportunity there for them.
News has to understand that thousands of families of newsagents and their employees are on tenterhooks about the future of newspaper distribution. This statement by Day and published in The Australian serves to heighten their anxiety and disrespects decades of service which has benefited the bottom line of the company enormously.
UPDATE: (5:45PM) The ANF has issued a statement this afternoon about this. Click here to see a copy.
mark, did you email mark day to see his response?
No I didn’t. I have sent Rupert Murdoch a tweet about this.
As an aside, how about that sticker on the age today promoting opening a stationery account at office works.
Totally disrespectful to advertise our competition IN OUR STORE in such a blatant way.
Did these stickers fall off of every paper like they did off the ones I received?
Very poor adhesive used I think.
Brendan, I had the same problem with the stickers falling off. Luckily the 20 million Superdraw stickers actually stay on the paper.
let news ltd delivery their subscription themselves
With the knowledge of this story I have today removed The Australian from sale in my store.
I have also decided to do the same with The Financial Review as this article bought back memories of an article written in the Financail Review many years ago, by a journalist who bagged Newsagents about a topic that he was uneducated and ill-informed about in regard to the Newsagent being a protected species.
It is a loss I am happy to endure, as someone has to stand up to these companies.
I will NEVER stock either of these titles again.
Does the article just show a lack of research, general knowledge of the industry he’s involved in, plain ignorance or very poor editing ?
Either way shows how poor the standard of most print news journalism and publishing has sunk and is also, I believe, one of the reasons people are sourcing their news elsewhere.
I wonder who pays his wages. I bet I already know who will be paying his old age pension – US
Paul, the answers are YES, YES, YES and finally YES.
Mark Day is a very smart man. He knew exactly what we was writing.
So lets see him respond here, with his rationale…
As a journo he would have auto call ups on his name his name and the source, so perhaps we if we could mention Mark Day’s in every response perhaps he may respond to the protected species we are…
What a shame Mark Day has no concept of how hard we work, how many we employ for the little we receive. There is no one else capable or willing to do what we do.
If we are protected I’d like to know what he calls the car industry?
Mark Day !!!! Maybe we need to take Peter`s advice…….who wants to chant?????
I have updated the post with a link to a statement issued by the ANF this afternoon.
Is this Mark Day’s opinion or did he attribute it to Kim Williams? An ill informed journo is par for the course but an ill informed CEO is a disaster about to happen.
Congrats on bringing this to our attention Mark. And well done to ANF for the response. Keep up the good work – it is appreciated out here in the field!
Thanks Nicole. Hey, anyone on Twitter could tweet Rupert Murdoch @ropertmurdoch with this link to the post. http://bit.ly/yDf1lL The more tweets the more notice for the issue.
More like shackled than protected. With Charles Dickens 200th anniversary this week I have been reminded about the work that Newstraid, the UK charity for News vendors’ does to help newsagents past and current. This time it was help with funeral expences (Dickens was President from 1854 until his death in 1870). http://www.newstraid.org.uk/history.html
We are appalled that someone of his standing can and will make such a comment. What a shame Mark day has no idea how hard newsagencts have to work for their $. Mark day you are a disgrace!
Good Morning Mark ,
Mark Day is half right , but it is News Ltd that is the protected one , not Newsagents.
News Ltd is protected by Newsagents whom continually promote, retail and distrubite their product 7 days per week, 52 weeks per year . It is News Ltd whom is protected by Newsagents continuing to pay their accounts weekly , yet are forced by News Ltd to provide 6 weeks credit to their home delivery customers for News Ltd product delivered. It is News Ltd again whom are protected by Newsagents by maintaining subscription product deliveries at below cost without being given the benefit of contact with the end customer, and it is News Ltd protected by the ACCC and others whom have turned a blind eye to the monopoly created by News Ltd and others since their “deregulation” of the industry in 1999.
The system must and will change , but to preamble that change with self pity blaming Newsagents for the present is niave bordering on slanderous . News Ltd and the other Publishers are the ones whom developed and maintained the present system , whilst ignoring the failures and descrepancies that it created.
So bring it on , change the system, but in doing so recognise that a fair return for effort and investment are paramount in any relationship, and that those whom have preceded that change are not abandoned but fairly compensated for ensuring that News Ltd for one is successful thanks largely to the Newsagency System that has been there for News Ltd and others this past century or so.
I am more interested to see what the long game is here for News Ltd, I am sure as usual that they have not thought this out at all, Mark Day is but a pawn in a much bigger game.
The fun is only just beginning…..
Commentators often observe that Mark Day is used by the company to ‘announce’ decisions or float changes they are considering.
let news try to shaft us some more, hopefully it will be hard enough to galvanise the industry into action. Would love to be part of a nationwide movement that boycotts all his papers for a week or month, would put a hell of a dent in his advertising revenue. not that i am suggesting we all do that as that would be illegal. just thinking out loud 🙂
I USED to suggest the Australian to people who asked which is the best paper.
Is the same Mark Day who was involved in the quality Truth newspaper last century? Any teenage boy worth his salt would not miss the Heart balm section.
Of course the UnAustralian would spout such BS.
It’s in their interest to further marginalise newsagents. Hell, they’ve got away with it since 1999, and in the process have imposed further constraints on our businesses. They treat our livelihoods as if they own us, expect us to continue doing their bidding via ridiculously lossmaking home delivery rules which cost them squat, while agents bear the burden.
On top of that, they employ bully-boy methods to keep us in line.
Yes, they are the ones feeding off a protectionist model which serves them, not us. They apply protectionist supply models to themselves in relation to newsagents, yet are also free sell to anyone else they like.
The hypocrisy and just plain wrongness of their operations in relation to their ‘customers’ has been a philosophical peeve ever since we took this place on. It took a couple of years, but what a relief it was when we finally broke free of these bastards.
Felt just like a good wash. Amazing how unclean one gets without realising just how dirty that game is.
I have tweeted to @rupertmurdoch several times about this and no response. he is busy telling Australia, Europe and the US governments what to do and often preaches about morals and family values and will not engage in a moral and ethical discussion affecting his own business.
Craig, yes.
Well at least he is consistent. His level of Journalism has not changed.
How many salary increases has Mark Day had in the last 10 years despite the decreasing circulation of the Australian?
For too long newspaper publishers have dangled the “TERRITORY” carrot.
I would like to see them delivering papers to all service stations and sandwich shops at the the current rate.
If these conditions are unsustainable why has nobody taken these publishers to court for unconscionable conduct.
The lesson for the publishers would be for all Agents to give their run at the same time. I would call this true deregulation. Maybe Mark Day can off his Ivory Tower and deliver his AUSTRALIAN.
George with respect I don’t think this is about what Mark Day is paid. It is about truthful reporting and truthful commentary. The comment from Mark Day is not truthful.
News limited has been blatantly manipulating Newsagents for over a decade.
News limited is rapidly working towards having no home delivery of newspapers and will pay nothing for delivery runs as they are now worthless.
Having achieved this task, they will quickly dump all newspaper printing and move everything to digital.
The cost of migration to digital (they are almost their now) would be minimal compared to the ongoing cost of newspaper production and distribution especially in Australia.
Advertisers will have no option but to follow online and after all that’s the main reason they print a newspaper – for the advertising revenue.
You only have to visit any public place where people are sitting and reading – usually waiting for some service; look around at what people are reading… it sure ain’t newspapers, and if there are, it’s because their free.
There will be no home delivery of newspapers within 3 years and soon after – no newspapers.
The newspaper industry is flogging a dead horse.
Newsagents need to forget about home delivery\newspapers and direct there efforts towards other more profitable ways – especially as a large unified group with some bargaining power.