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Media disruption

The value of genuine journalism covered by local newspapers in the US

This Twitter thread is a good read for anyone interested in the impact on the continuing closure of local newspapers in the US. It lists important local news stories published by local newspapers.

Sadly, too many local newspapers in Australia are published by the big publishers and those newspapers carry little genuine journalism.

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Media disruption

Angler’s Almanac and Tide Guide from The Great Outdoors cease publication

The Angler’s Almanac and the SE Queensland Tide Guide will not be published for 2023 and beyond, which is a blow for keen anglers and for retailers who serve them.

These special interest titles were loved by those who bought and used them, and they’d always find them no matter where they were placed in the shop.

This is not an end of the world post. Rather, there are better, more efficient and accessible, ways through which to provide access to this information.

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magazines

Looking back 17 years

I’m not big on looking back, especially at past blog posts. This morning, though, searching for something else, I found this post from here, on September 28, 2005:

CRIKEY PUBLISHER SAYS NEWSPAPERS ARE “ON THE SKIDS”

In yesterday’s edition of Crikey, a daily emailed publication of news and comment, Publisher Eric Beecher commented about newspapers in the context of the appointment of a new editor for the Sydney Morning Herald, a newspaper Beecher once himself edited. Here’s what Beecher had to say:

17. Editing the SMH is about cost cutting, not creative journalism

By Crikey publisher Eric Beecher

The Sydney Morning Herald has a new editor – Alan Oakley, currently editor of The Sunday Age. “I am privileged to take on the best job in Australian journalism,” he said yesterday. “It is a challenging time for newspapers. I will concentrate my efforts to ensure that we are continually meeting the evolving needs of readers.”

Oakley, who is a popular choice, may feel he is taking up the best job in Australian journalism (it certainly felt like that when I had it in the late 1980s), but I suspect it won’t be much fun.

Newspapers like the Herald that depend solely on classified advertising for their profits are on the skids. Fewer people buy them or respect them, and their classified ads are migrating inextricably to the internet because it’s a better, cheaper medium for that kind of advertising.

Unfortunately, this consigns their editors to saying one thing (“I will concentrate my efforts to ensure that we are continually meeting the evolving needs of readers”) but doing another – cutting costs and eliminating jobs. These days, editors of papers like the Herald are more like executioners than editors.

Quality newspapers are a sunset industry desperately trying to prop up their historically high profits by cutting costs. Over the past week in the US, for example, six of the country’s more prestigious newspapers – including The New York Times, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer and San Jose Mercury News – have sliced hundreds of editorial and non-editorial jobs. And no-one believes this culling was anything other than business as usual for big newspapers.

Fairfax CEO Fred Hilmer said yesterday that Oakley’s appointment means the Herald “is in excellent hands for the future.” Unfortunately, that can only mean that Alan Oakley knows how to wield the knife.

I agree with Beecher’s comments about the viability of newspapers relying on classified advertising. Okay it won’t happen today or tomorrow. It will happen though. The economics of online classifieds make it inevitable. Newspapers cannot compete with the flexible search, production costs and mobility offerings of online advertising. Playing games with giveaways and competitions to drive sales will not fix that. Nor will offering free advertisements. Nor will free newspapers. Newspapers have a bright future if they focus on content.

I worry for the traditional newspaper supply chain in Australia. Newsagents are not prepared for the effects of the changes even though we are in the middle of them already with considerable supply changes impacting our businesses.

I disagree with Beecher’s comments about the viability of quality newspapers. Respected content (news, analysis and opinion) delivered exclusively in a print form will deliver sales of sufficient value to attract certain advertisers. Okay it’s more of a hope than a belief. People like Tim Porter and Jeff Jarvis and others have suggested how it may be achieved.

There is no doubt that this is a time of enormous disruption for newspapers. Denial only makes the road harder to navigate.

This: I worry for the traditional newspaper supply chain in Australia. Newsagents are not prepared for the effects of the changes even though we are in the middle of them already with considerable supply changes impacting our businesses. proved to be true.

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Media disruption

Washington Post: Every week, two more newspapers close — and ‘news deserts’ grow larger

The Washington Post published a story a few days ago about newspaper closures in the US.

Every week, two more newspapers close — and ‘news deserts’ grow larger

In poorer, less-wired parts of the U.S., it’s harder to find credible news about your local community. That has dire implications for democracy.

Perspective by Margaret Sullivan
Columnist
June 29, 2022 at 10:30 a.m. EDT

Penelope Muse Abernathy may be the nation’s foremost expert on what media researchers call “news deserts”— and she’s worried.

News deserts are communities lacking a news source that provides meaningful and trustworthy local reporting on issues such as health, government and the environment. It’s a vacuum that leaves residents ignorant of what’s going on in their world, incapable of fully participating as informed citizens. What’s their local government up to? Who deserves their vote? How are their tax dollars being spent? All are questions that go unanswered in a news desert.

Local newspapers are hardly the only news sources that can do the job, but they are the ones that have traditionally filled that role. And they are disappearing.

One-third of American newspapers that existed roughly two decades ago will be out of business by 2025, according to research made public Wednesday from Northwestern University’s Medill School, where Abernathy is a visiting professor.

Already, some 2,500 dailies and weeklies have shuttered since 2005; there are fewer than 6,500 left. Every week, two more disappear. And although many digital-only news sites have cropped up around the nation, most communities that lost a local newspaper will not get a print or digital replacement.

“What’s discouraging is that this trend plays into, and worsens, the whole divide we see in America,” Abernathy, the report’s principal author, told me this week.

The neediest areas — those that are more remote, poorer and less wired — are the ones that get hurt the worst. Most of the new investment and innovation pouring into the media sector, as valuable and needed as it is, doesn’t reach these regions.

Be sure to read the article.

Here in Australia, when I would write about challenges to newspapers, some from publishing companies would respond saying I was ignorant, wrong or irrelevant. Whatever. The reality is that the purpose of newspapers has changed. What we are witnessing is the management of the softest crash landing they can manage – for themselves. yes, they are focussed on the impact on their businesses, with little or no regard to the businesses that have partnered with them for 100+ years.

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Media disruption

Updated advice for new newsagents, those who have bought a newsagency

This is not a complete list. Also, it’s my list. Others will have their list.

Before you get to the list, consider  consider the type of newsagency do you want to run: retail or agency. In my opinion, retail has growth opportunities and relies on you whereas agency is flat or declining with others in control of much of your business. I am more interested in retail.

You drive business value by playing at the boundaries of the business, broadening what you sell, the price points you can achieve and the new faces you can attract. Attracting new shoppers has to be a key focus as this feeds into other metrics.

Plenty of people offering newsagents advice on how to run their businesses and what to stock are not newsagents, not even retailers. Often, they are not business owners with a vested interest in your success. Be cautious about advice offered, especially from supplier reps. Their needs are likely not your needs.

I own the newsagency software company supplying more newsagents with software than all others, I also own the newsXpress marketing group and I own 4 newsagencies. Best of all, every day I get to work with retail experts, retail practitioners. They have the best advice, from lived experience, successes and failures. In offering advice here I’m not trying to make money off of you. The advice is offered free to anyone to read and use or not.

Here’s my updated list for new newsagents:

  1. MAGAZINES.
    1. Arrive invoices through XchangeIT – no other way.
    2. Only sell magazines by scanning. Never use department keys.
    3. Do not label all magazines. Do not label weeklies or high volume monthlies.
    4. When returning magazines, scan out returns. Do this at least weekly.
    5. Do not early return magazines the day they arrive unless you have been sent too many. Often newsagent who early return deny the opportunity of sales.
    6. Early return at least twice a month – based on what is NOT selling.
    7. If you have sub agents – only supply them through the sub agent facilities in your newsagency software.
    8. Check your magazine account as soon as it comes in to ensure you have received all credits.
    9. Pay your magazine bills on time without fail – avoid being cut off for weeks without magazines.
    10. You control where magazines are placed, it is your shop.
    11. You do not have to put posters in the window. I recommend against this.
    12. You do not have to do big magazine displays – it is your choice. I see no evidence of it increasing sales.
    13. I recommend against letting magazine companies set up display unless you think they will help drive sales.
  1. NEWSPAPERS.
    1. You control where newspapers are placed, it is your shop.
    2. If you are regularly undersupplied, complain to the publisher as well as the supplying newsagent (if you do not have a direct account).
    3. Scan all newspapers you sell.
    4. Scan all newspaper returns – accurate data will be your friend in the event of a dispute
    5. You do not have to put out newspaper posters or place newspapers in a certain position unless you have signed a contract with a publisher agreeing to this.
    6. Manage your exposure to promotions where you sell stock for a tiny margin.
  1. CARDS.
    1. Cards have the largest %GP of all physical products you will sell (except coffee if you offer that). Treat cards with the respect that value demands.
    2. Think carefully before signing a contract.
    3. Pay for your own fixtures.
    4. Put out your own cards. Learn what you stock. Take ownership of this most important product category.
    5. Ideally, do your own card order. It’s your money being spent. Don’t leave this to someone else to do.
    6. Agree on an ordering process with your card co. account manager, for example what number of cards remaining in a pocket to order on.
    7. Immediately report any over or under supply.
    8. Trust your data ahead of your gut and ahead of sell-in reports from suppliers.
    9. Pay on time or risk being cut off.
    10. Discount seasonal stock at the end of the season for a couple of days to pick up stragglers and make an extra few $$$.
    11. At least every two years (preferably annually) undertake a range review of sales by pocket based on your sales data, not card company provided data.
  1. STAFF.
    1. Decide on your pay rates. The award is best used as a base guide. It’s likely that to attract and retail good staff you will need to pay above award.
    2. Ensure everyone has a list of things to do each day.
    3. Have a documented position description against which your employees are measured.
    4. Have a written roster every week.
    5. Have a structured process for handling annual and sick leave.
    6. Use payroll software for record keeping.
    7. Pay always on time and preferably by electronic transfer.
    8. Pay super on time. Do not start someone working for you unless they have provided a super account number with their tax file number.
    9. Change your roster regularly for casuals.
  1. STOCK  AND SUPPLIERS.
    1. Every day, look for opportunities to attract new people through what you choose to range and how you display it.
    2. Do not buy for yourself, what you like.
    3. Only see supplier reps who have made an appointment.
    4. If a supplier rep tells you something will be a success, ask for the evidence.
    5. Use your computer system to guide ordering of stock – order based on sales.
    6. Order to a budget.
    7. Scan everything you sell.
    8. Scan out personal use stock.
    9. Set your own mark-up policy for items that are not pre priced.
    10. It is easier to discount than increase prices.
    11. Do not pay for an external stock taker – do it yourself through the year.
    12. Check high theft risk items like weekly or fortnightly.
    13. Arrive and price stock on the shop floor, and not the back room. You’ll sell more this way.
  1. SHOP LEASE.
    1. Negotiate your own lease. Paying someone who is not financially invested in the outcome is likely to not get a better deal for you, despite their pitch.
    2. Read your lease.
    3. Make sure the permitted use clause serves the future needs of your business.
    4. Pay on time otherwise you could be locked out.
    5. Do not agree to a new lease unless you have read the entire document and are prepared to agree to it in its entirety.
    6. Conduct discussions with your landlord in writing to maintain a paper trail.
  1. GST.
    1. Complete your BAS on time and make any necessary payment – to reduce the opportunity for you being audited.
  1. FINANCE AND OTHER MATTERS.
    1. If you borrowed to get into your business, start paying this off from the first week, make progress everyweek. This avoids you having a challenge when you come to sell the business.
    2. Pay yourself a wage or at least accrue this in the accounts.
    3. Integrate with accounting software like Xero – keep bookkeeper costs down.
    4. Ensure workcover (workers comp.) cover is up to date and maintained.
    5. Ensure you have appropriate council permits for what you sell – i.e. food.
    6. Have a structured banking process that ensures that cash is tracked at all steps and at all time.
    7. Take a data backup every day. The best approach is an automated cloud backup – ask your software company.
    8. Bank every day and bank the takings for each day separately to make reconciliation easier.
    9. Use your software to manage the end of shift process to drive consistency and accuracy.

As I said at the start, this list is evolving with time. I hope it is useful to new newsagents and would be newsagents, to understand some of the day to day tasks you cannot afford to get wrong.

Footnote: I first published a version of this advice 7 years ago.

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buying a newsagency

Perfecting the digital newspaper and magazine experience for travellers

You’d struggle to find print newspapers and magazines in airport lounges in the US now.

At LaGuardia (New York) airport yesterday, in the American Airlines lounge, I spotted this sign.

Clicking on the QR code takes me to an awesome website offering current newspapers and magazines. The range is extensive.

Once you select the title you want, access is immediate – all without needing to register, login or pay anything.

The copy of the paper is complete with ads.

Checking countries for which they have newspapers, Australia is not listed.

I spent an hour looking through the site, including the magazines, and that’s where I found some Australian titles.

Again, the reader experience was easy. You can zoom in and out with ease – on any device you are using. I tries this on my phone, iPad and MacBook. Such a good experience.

And, yes, in The Australian Women’s Weekly, there are ads.

I was even able to download titles, like AWW, for reading later. It was so easy.

I am surprised at how good the experience is, that it is free and that they ask nothing of me.

There are a couple of aspects to this experience that interest me: more evidence of digital first for what was print media, and, the tech story. The first was a given. But, it has been slow, because of the second. Tech has been slow and while what I experienced in the American Airlines lounge was good, it was not perfect. It was, however, a leap forward from two years ago when I last tried this out.

This is not about the traveller experience though. Well, it is, but looking down the path, it’s about how tech companies and others are removing roadblocks, to make the digital reader experience easier, faster and more personal. It is also about relationships that could be leverages to reach more eyeballs for instant access.

In terms of the tech, navigation is where I’d like to see change.Access is currently linear, like the print products themselves. I’d like more diving by topic, breaking stories free from mastheads. But, of course, that dilutes the value of the mastheads in the eyes of the publishers.

If you think about it, the print media distribution model was always destination shopper driven and distribution was always focussed on. this: newsagencies, home delivery etc … driven by the person who wants access to those products. The person has to know about the product and either want it or be curious about it.

The airline lounge experience is for the passer-by with some time available to read, it’s for the impulse shopper, the passer-by. That’s a different ‘shopper, and, potentially, a more valuable shopper for publishers into the future.

As publishers, and tech platforms, finesse their offerings, they will be more easily able to reach more of these people. I think partnerships will help drive this, using the masthead content as a value-add. This is where we will see more disruption.

That model, that future model, could / should be about stories reaching out to people, reaching more people, and not being accessed in a linear way.

I’m not doom and gloom for the newsagency channel based on what I have seen. This innovation, and what will come, are inevitable. Publishers are evolving, just as we must.

While I am sitting here in the lounge writing this, I am sat next to a large digital screen promoting an American Airlines / Oprah Book Club, Apple TV+ partnership through which I can watch Oprah interview authors and access those books to read while flying.

It’s the era of partnerships baby, and tech for what was print media!

So, where do we fit into all this? Today, if we offer print products in our shops, and not all of us do, we need to offer the best experience. And, while we do this, we need to evolve new traffic attractors, to bring more people. The best thing we can see in our newsagencies is new faces and the best experience is when they come back, again and again. Achieving that is 100% up to us as retailers. It’s not something agents would do.

The biggest risk to our newsagency channel is the newsagents who are not evolving, the newsagents who prefer to remain agents and the suppliers who encourage and enable them.

Postscript. It’s now 8 hours later and I’m in Wisconsin. I thought I’d try and access another title. Sure enough, access is locked to the WiFi at the American Lounge I was in.

It makes sense that access to locked to the location. It also underscores the opportunity of this tech to help publishers engage with new audiences.

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magazines

So many discount news deals

Some overseas publishers appear to be targeting Australia with dumping type pricing of digital access. Like The New York Times:

And Bloomberg:

They make The Age seem expensive

This is what happens with digital products that have little or no distribution costs. Any incremental revenue is icing on the cake.

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Media disruption

Great to see another local, independent, regional newspaper: Eyre Peninsula Advocate

Check out the terrific story about the launch of the Eyre Peninsular Advocate, a new local and independent newspaper to rise in the wake of a corporate rural newspaper closure.

COMMUNITY
Another SA regional newspaper is reborn

James Manuel

1 min read

The new weekly Eyre Peninsula Advocate hit the newsstands last week, heralding the return of print news to eastern and western Eyre Peninsula.

Papers and Publications Managing Director Andrew Manuel said the reception from communities from Cleve to Ceduna had been amazing.

“Regional newspapers are so important to people living in the country,” Andrew said.

“When local newspapers close, it hits communities hard.

“Newspapers keep people connected to their communities and each other through sharing the stories that locals care about.

Check out the online version of the Eyre Peninsular Advocate too. Their subscriptions options are modest:

Just as our parliament, and democracy, would benefit from more genuinely independent representation, so do local communities benefit from more independent media outlets. I hope we see more indie papers start up, and thrive.

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Media disruption

Promoting easy access to magazines online

Check out this targeted ad for digital access to magazines I saw on Facebook the other day.

Once I clicked on it (which cost the platform some money), this offer was pitched.

It’s interesting this platform, Readly, with 5,000 titles pitch a local Perth title. My IP address at the time had me in Perth.

Here’s an ad that was in my Facebook feed the next day. They are stalking me.

I don’t begrudge publishers doing this. I’d do it if I were them. However, it is vital that newsagents see the investments by publishers in chasing readers and subscribers elsewhere. This is the future and one of several reasons over the counter purchase of magazines continues to decline.

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magazines

News UK writes the value of The Sun newspaper down to zero

News Group Newspapers, a subsidiary of News UK, has written down the book value of The Sun newspaper to zero, reports The Guardian:

Rupert Murdoch has written down the value of the Sun newspapers to zero as the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic helped to fuel a £200m loss at his flagship tabloid titles.

Advertising and sales revenues at the Sun and the Sun on Sunday plummeted, with turnover falling by 23% from £419.9m to £324m in the year to the end of June 2020.

The torrid market conditions, coupled with one-off charges related to ongoing legal action over allegations of historical phone hacking, led to pretax losses more than tripling from £67.8m in 2019 to £201.4m.

As a result News Group Newspapers, the subsidiary of News UK that operates the two titles, wrote down their value to zero. The £84m non-cash “impairment of publishing rights” essentially means the publisher does not believe the titles will return to positive growth.

Another factor is the value of the daily print newspaper as an advertising platform. As more ad dollars flow online and elsewhere, the economic value of the print product fades.

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Media disruption

News Corp. to reduce newspaper distribution in regional Queensland

The ABC has just published this story about a decision by News Corp. to scale back print newspaper distribution in regional Queensland:

News Corp Australia to stop distributing newspapers to much of regional Queensland

News Corp Australia has notified a number of newsagents across regional Queensland that it will stop delivering its titles to them from late September, due to the “very high cost” of distribution.

News Corp wrote to select newsagents last Thursday, informing them it would no longer provide physical copies of eight mastheads, including The Courier-Mail, The Australian and The Daily Telegraph, after September 26.

The ABC understands distribution will cease to towns further west than Charters Towers in the north, Emerald in central Queensland and in some parts of the state’s south-west.

The move leaves a large swathe of Queenslanders without access to a daily newspaper covering state, national and international affairs.

In the letter seen by the ABC, News Corp Australia said its decision was based on “the very high cost to distribute to your region, in the context of how people access their news today, [which] makes its continuation unsustainable”.

News Corp. issued this statement to the ABC:

We are following our audience — and our advertisers — to where they consume news and information, allowing our news coverage to be more immediate and focused on our communities. While our changes in western Queensland represent about 1 per cent of state newspaper sales, the true value of a newspaper is in the news, not the paper it’s printed on.

Read the whole ABC story: as it goes into detail and quotes several newsagents.

Here’s the thing … print in not an efficient medium for the distribution of news and opinion. Sales of newspapers have been underline for close to 20 years. The moves being made by News Corp. in Queensland will not be the only such moves.

As I have written here over the years, the only issue to be resolved about the retreat and ultimate closure of print newspapers is the timing.

Newsagents need to run their businesses so as to not rely on newspapers or any legacy products. Hopefully, the story this morning from the ABC encourages more newsagents to pivot.

Now, as to News Corp. itself, it has not dealt with and is not dealing with these decisions in an inclusive way. It is being selfish and secretive. but, hey, that’s News Corp for you. I say selfish and secretive because company representatives tell newsagents they are important, that they support them, that they need them. Unfortunately, too many newsagents and some who support newsagents drink and that kool-aid and fall into line with the News Corp. spin.

News Corp. should be transparent with newsagents about its timeline. Yes, I am sure it has a timeline that documents the trigger points for withdrawing distributions like that covered in the ABC story this morning and even bigger moves like when it will close capital city dailies. I get why it is not transparent …/ but I wish it was as, sadly, there are newsagents who believe News Corp. more than they believe their own sales data.

I support newspapers in newsagencies, but only on terms that are viable for newsagents. By that I mean being frugal in space and labour allocation while at the same time aggressively attracting new shoppers for new product categories that offer growth opportunities into the future.

Anyone involved in print newspaper production, distribution and sale is involved in an activity that will end … soon. Everything being done needs to be done on the basis of pursuing a soft landing. That is what News Corp. is doing with these decisions. If I was a News Corp. shareholder;der I’d be supporting their moves.

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Media disruption

Careful what you wish for

Following relentless lobbying by News, Nine and some other commercial news outlets, agreement was reached for Google and Facebook to pay a fee for news stories to appear in search results.

Now, a few weeks later, Google is said to be trialling eliminating some news outlets from search results. It’s a kind of careful what you wish for moment.

This story has a bit to play out yet. It will be interesting to watch and see where it lands.

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Media disruption

Interesting Twitter thread on newspaper returns at a local newsagency

The thread was drawn to my attention when a journalist tagged me in a comment. The whole thread makes for interesting reading. The original poster has 260 Twitter followers. Looking at the comments and re-tweets, it has reached tens of thousands. That in itself is a story about the ripple impact of social media.

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Media disruption

Is News Corp selling its metro newspapers

This is an interesting and thoughtful piece from Crikey yesterday on the prospect of News Corp putting its capital city papers up for sale:

Psst! Wanna buy a paper? Well, you’re in luck. Looks like News Corp might have a few on the market.

The Murdochs appear to be looking for a buyer for their chain of metropolitan tabloids like the Herald Sun, The Daily Telegraph and The Courier-Mail. Only hitch: it doesn’t seem any of them are making much — if any — money.

If the sale happens, expect it to be soon: Rupert has always liked timing deals leading into Christmas, allowing any unavoidable huffing and puffing to fade in the torpor of the holiday season.

The tabloids have become too large a problem to be managed. Ever since the Murdochs split their media business into two back in 2013, the old media News Corp has been an ungainly mix of assets that make money (The Wall Street Journal, realestate.com.au) and those that don’t (the tabloids, regional newspapers, Foxtel).

News Corp shares have been worth less than they would if the company were smaller, thinned down, without those loss-making parts. That’s a conundrum for a family trust much of whose wealth is tied up in those shares.

Over the past year, the company has been methodically working through its portfolio, closing and shedding the parts that don’t work. In March, it sold off its coupons business, News America Marketing, to private equity for about $335 million.

In May, it stopped printing over 100 of its regional and community newspapers, closing some and leaving others to limp on with a purely digital presence. The residue has been considered on the market, perhaps to Australian Community Media that bought Nine’s similar portfolio last year.

News Corp predicts this restructure is reducing revenues this financial year by about $160 million. According to the published accounts, it cost most of the $150 million the company spent on termination payments last year.

Then, in August, the end of year figures separately reported results for the loss-making mastheads in Australia, the UK and US and for the money-making WSJ. The reporting put the difference up in lights: the remnant News Media revenues fell by about 20% (much of it before the COVID-19 crash); in the new Dow Jones-WSJ segment revenues were up.

The stock market seems to have sniffed something is up: over the past month, News Corp shares listed on the NASDAQ exchange have jumped almost 40%, over twice the market’s broader post-Trump bump.

The challenge for the tabloids is the challenge faced by traditional local or city-based media around the world: an audience too diffuse to resist the flood of advertisers to the micro-targeting of the tech platforms; yet too geographically focussed to find enough people prepared to pay subscriptions.

In a surprise for long-term Murdoch watchers, it looks like the once-vanity project of The Australian is now more financially stable — even profitable, maybe powerful — than the once-dominant tabloids. At June 30, the company says, The Australian had about 200,000 paying subscribers (in digital and print), the most the paper has ever had. It positions the paper to claim a lion’s share of any payment for news from Google and Facebook.

News Corp will be betting that, along with Sky News, The Australian will sustain its clout in Canberra without the tabloids

By comparison, the Herald Sun, once Australia’s largest paper with more than 600,000 in circulation, now claims only 125,000 paying subscribers. Like The Courier-Mail, it failed spectacularly in turning its power against the local Labor premier.

London’s The Sun, which boasted a circulation well over 3 million back when it was making and breaking British governments, now limps along at about 1 million. It has no paid-for digital offering.

Traditionally, when Murdoch has sold mastheads, he’s sold to other media players or to a management buyout. For the Australian tabloids, that would make local management and Seven West Media the front-runners. Owner Kerry Stokes has been a long-term ally of Rupert. The West Australian already shares copy with News Corp.

And the price? Nine’s sale of New Zealand’s Stuff earlier this year may have set the market: NZ$1 to its local CEO. Sounds about right, but expect that to be buried in exchanges of rights, share-holdings and liabilities.

Regulars here will know my response – we should all be running our businesses to rely less of traffic freeways and more on traffic laneways. In other words, more sources of shopper traffic than the usual regular ones on which we, as a channel, grew up.

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Media disruption

News Corp. Q1 FY 2021 results

The latest results posted by News Corp. speak to challenges for the company in the print space with newspaper revenue down 20% and the benefits leveraged by the company in the digital subscription space.

The results are worth a read by newsagents as they provides context for understanding the focus of the company – digital.

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Media disruption

Your own personal newsagency: the $14.99 a month all-in newspaper and magazine subscription

With the Apple News App, for A$14.99 a month for up to 6 family members you get access to a ton of Australian and international magazines and newspapers. All current issue content.

This from the Apple website outlines the content:

Apple News+, a subscription service that brings together hundreds of popular magazines and leading newspapers into a beautiful, convenient and curated experience within the Apple News app, is now available to Australian readers. Apple News+ presents full access to the best and most relevant publications to meet any range of interests from major Australian outlets including The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, The Courier Mail, The Advertiser, Vogue, Australian Women’s Health, Elle, The Australian Women’s Weekly, Harper’s Bazaar Australia, GQ, Australian Men’s Health, Delicious and Australian Geographic, as well as several international newspapers and magazines including The Wall Street Journal (US), Los Angeles Times (US), The Times (UK), The Sunday Times (UK), National Geographic (US), Rolling Stone (US), Grazia (UK) and Hello! (UK).

Apple pitches it as your own personal newsagency:

Given that News Corp. wants compensation from Google and Facebook for taking revenue from them, maybe they offer newsagents compensation for their Apple relationship taking revenue from our channel.

Further on at the Apple website they detail more content:

Apple News+ subscribers can access current and past issues and individual articles from magazines such as Vogue Australia, Harper’s Bazaar Australia, Australian Women’s Health, The Australian Women’s Weekly, Elle, GQ Australia, Australian Men’s Health and Delicious. Australian subscribers can also access international newspapers and magazines including The Wall Street Journal (US), Los Angeles Times (US), The Times (UK), The Sunday Times (UK), Forbes (US), Esquire (US), Rolling Stone (US), National Geographic (US), New York Magazine (US), The Hollywood Reporter (US), Empire (UK) and Grazia (UK).

In reality this is another platform offering access to multiple titles for one subscription fee. These sites demonstrate the scope of the challenge to disruption of the print medium and the extent of fractional business publishers will embrace to extend the reach of their content.

There is nothing new here. It’s been happening for years. I mention it today as someone new to the channel was surprised to discover it is a thing.

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Media disruption

NZ news outlet sees no significant traffic decline in leaving Facebook

One argument put forward by the government in support of their proposal to have Facebook and Google pay some but not all Australian news outlets has been challenges.

The Giant Stuff news and information business in New Zealand quit Facebook in July.

On ABC radio’s AM this morning information was shared indicating that the traffic impact for the news site has been minimal.

While I have shared my opinions here and here, I’ll note, again, that I think the code proposed by the government is poor policy that is being propagated to appease supporters. It is not the wise action of a free market economy. It is technically ignorant of how the platforms work and the control the publishers have.

The publishers set to benefit from the code, if there is a benefit, have broken business models. I doubt that any mon ey that may flow from implementing the code would support good journalism in Australia. That, in my view, is up to individual Australians, through the choices we make.

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Media disruption

Jeff Jarvis on the proposal that Google / Facebook pay for news

Jeff Jarvis is a journalism professor and an expert on news and, in particular, digital platforms of news. His tweets, in a thread, just now are interesting and timely in my opinion. be sure to read the full thread:

As I have noted already, the proposed move by the government is foolish, ill-conceived and pandering to media giants. They choose where their content goes. They have demonstrated the value of journalism in all their giveaways and discount deals on platforms line the Apple News platform.

You can see how ridiculous the move is by excluding the ABC and SBS.

The proposal by the government is dressed as supporting journalism but, I suspect, it has nothing to do with this.

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Media disruption
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