Roy Greenslade makes sense in his blog post at The Guardian about the decision by the publisher of the Belfast Telegraph to take home delivery away from newsagents in response to a dramatic sales fall. Newsagents aren’t the cause of the problem. The publisher is responsible on a range of fronts.
It is great to see someone of Greenslade’s stature get behind the story and defend newsagents.
Are we really to believe that newsagents in Ireland’s northern six counties are solely, or even mainly, responsible for this dramatic decline in the fortunes of a paper that was selling more than 100,000 copies on weekdays five years ago?
Beyond this Irish issue, however, is Grenslkade’s veiw of UK newsagents. It is something Australian newsagents ought to read. Sure we take comfort from the fact that the UK market is different to ours. The reality is not that different that we can ignore what has happened to independent newsagents in the UK. Check out Greenslade’s opening paragraph:
Newsagents across Britain have been closing week by week for years, succumbing to a long-term trend that has seen the gradual disappearance of the economically unsustainable corner shop. Meanwhile, supermarkets have been supplanting them as the major retailers of newspapers.
Gulp. Did he really write that? Isn’t is heresy to put this view in front of newsagents. Don’t we want to believe that none of this will affect us? Yes, yes and yes.
Read the whole piece – you’ll understand why I bang on about the Newsagency of the Future and why I have been so interested in the demise of Kleins and other business models which have not been refreshed.
Roy Greenslade is someone I would have on a panel here in Australia to debate the future of our channel. His perspective on the future of our core products of newspapers and magazines could wake us from our slumber.
My original blog post on the Irish issue can be hound here.
Sceal Bocht ata sin