MediaWeek demonstrates lazy reporting in its page two story this week about the Australian Newsagents Federation. What should be a story about newsagents is a story promoting ANF CEO (and former publisher executive) Rayma Creswell.
MediaWeek says Rayma took over the ANF several years ago. Rayma was employed fifteen months ago.
MediaWeek says Rayma “has just been on a national road show visiting members in all major population centres”. This is not true. Rayma has done a tour of NSW/ACT city and regional centres. These meetings were used by Rayma (rightly) to promote the ANF cause and (unfortunately) attack the state newsagent association (NANA) and any newsagent who dared ask her a difficult question.
MediaWeek says that “the challenges to retailers (newsagents) continues to be the growth of supermarkets…” While one could have this perspective, I suggest it is not shared by newsagents. The biggest challenge newsagents face is the supply of magazines outside the top 200 titles on terms which are not equitable. Newsagent sales of top selling titles are growing. Supermarkets have had these titles for years so why Rayma or the ANF would have concerns now is odd. It is with titles outside the top 200 that newsagents have higher real-estate and labour costs. These titles have a sell through rate of 50% or less in many cases. Call any newsagent in the country and I am sure that they will say the magazine supply model is the biggest challenge.
MediaWeek also says that newsagents have long complained about publishers selling subscriptions in their magazines. Rayma was (last I checked) a Director of Luna media, the publisher of Cosmos. Every ANF press release ought to declare this interest. Cosmos engages in this subscription strategy. It is among the worst performing titles in newsagencies by the cash-flow contribution measure.
It seems to me that MediaWeek has been fed a Rayma press release and run with it as a new item. The item does newsagents a disservice.