World and Herald Editorial to Merge

IRE60

There was an interesting development in the media landscape yesterday when it was announced that the Evening Herald and Sunday World would merge their editorial departments.

http://www.rte.ie/news/business/2014/0813/636911-inm-merging-editorial-functions-of-herald-world/

But I’m intrigued by some other aspects of the story that are ‘hanging there’:

One would have thought that a more natural bedfellow for the SW was the Daily Star, if one was doing a 24/7 tabloid newsroom. However, I think the salient point(s) here are that the DS is not ‘fully controlled’ by INM, they have an agreement, from 2013, to have executive control of the paper but the brand is licensed to them – the period of that licence is unknown.

You’ll remember that Richard Desmond made a valiant effort to extricate his company from that JV in September 2012 when Kate’s Modesty was compromised by the Daily Star.

So, do I get the whiff of uncertainty in the air? Is that licence about to expire? The Herald moved to the morning slot back in March 2013, a mere two months after the new agreement between INM and Desmond regarding the DS was in place and is an active participant in the morning market competing against two stalemates (in reality one really)

It will be interesting to see what transpires.

JTMan

Interesting observations.

The Irish Daily Star has moved operations to Talbot Street, fallen under INM management and taken advantages of "efficiencies" with the other INM newspapers. However, it has remained a "standalone entity".

Circulation of Irish Daily Star has been in free-fall, down not far off 50% over recent years.

Is the omission to include the Irish Daily Star in the Sunday World / Herald synergies deliberate because it is "standalone" or the precursor to closure of the title?

As newspaper sales continue to dwindle, the next to go will always be low hanging fruit, the Irish Daily Star fits that picture.

IRE60

Yea, I think there is a reluctance on behalf of IN&M to throw any more weight behind the DS – which doesn’t look too good. Desmond genuinely came very close to pulling the plug in 2012 and there a possibility an agreement was reached for a short term deal.
Desmond has learned a real lesson in the Sunday Market here – at one point there were 30 people working on the Daily Star Sunday – then it closed its doors and he literally stuck a tri-colour on his UK edition and shipped it here in place of the ‘Irish Version’
Sales went from a six month average of 53,000 to 28,000 after the localised edition was folded – but he had no staff costs and minimal extra costs in printing/shipping the UK version here.
The cover price is €1 and let’s just say that he keeps 50c of that after distribution, VAT, retailers margin etc which means he’s taking in €516,000 p.a. – for doing nothing!
The Daily Star is not unique in the decline – although it’s up there. The pic below shows the devastation perpetrated on the Morning newspaper market on the tabloids.
There’s no going back to the good days now.

ed: The ABC figures for the first half of the year are out on Thursday and I'll be back then with the bad news and a roundup of the figures

JTMan

I just did some further reading on this.

It was reported in 2013 that the INM and N&S agreement ihas "2 to 3 years to run" but "will now be extended". Hence, it would appear that the "medium term" agreement still has several years to run.

JTMan

According to today's SBP:
13 staff to go in this integration.
Some staff will be forced to reapply for their own job.
New pay could apply in some cases.
Poor redundancy terms offered.
The plan is based around a "retention" plan for these two titles.

IRE60

Jasus the rot continues:
http://www.rte.ie/news/business/2014/0827/639754-claire-grady-steps-down-as-independent-editor/

Would she have been the shortest serving editor? It's a bad sign. Ger Colleran leaves the star, she's gone now - along with a few senior heads last week who walked as well i believe). It shows a worrying trend.

JTMan

Not a good sign. Clearly, management are not happy with the direction the Indo was heading in.

The INM results are released tomorrow. No prizes for guessing that it will show decreased revenue, decreased staffing levels and a declining overall group.

IRE60

Or perhaps she's not happy with the direction Management are heading in! Or perhaps the overall mgt strategy. If Stephen Rea is still "Uber Lord" of all the titles then it's his call on the direction front - not her's.

Loafing Oaf

JTMan wrote: »

Not a good sign. Clearly, management are not happy with the direction the Indo was heading in.

The INM results are released tomorrow. No prizes for guessing that it will show decreased revenue, decreased staffing levels and a declining overall group.

Maybe it's nothing to do with any of this: every editor's job nowadays is about managing decline. I've always been more of a Times than an Indo man but I have to admit the latter has upped its game significantly in the last few years., principally by recruiting some of their rivals' top talents.

Reckon it was essentially a clash between her and Rae over who's running the show.

IRE60

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Reckon it was essentially a clash between her and Rae over who's running the show.

I'd say that's the bottom line.

IRE60

JTMan wrote: »

The INM results are released tomorrow. No prizes for guessing that it will show decreased revenue, decreased staffing levels and a declining overall group.

Net Profit doubled from €6.9 million to €14.0 million
Total Revenue of €157.8 million, marginally down on the prior year
Digital advertising revenue growth of 30% to €3.9 million (ie 2.47% of t/o)

Significant increase in independent.ie traffic – unique visits have doubled year-on-year to 9.2 million in July, while page impressions in July were up 23% year-on-year to 70 million;
Traffic on sundayworld.com has more than quadrupled since last year, with over 1 million unique visits and over 5 million page impressions in July

Continued strong delivery on cost reduction programme;
Editorial work-flow and “write to fit” initiative nearing completion; and
Integration of Sunday World and The Herald editorial operation has commenced.

bogmanfan

IRE60 wrote: »

Total Revenue of €157.8 million, marginally down on the prior year
Digital advertising revenue growth of 30% to €3.9 million (ie 2.47% of t/o)

This is the interesting part. They are already claiming to be Ireland's biggest news site, and are ploughing resources into their online operation. Yet the earnings from the site are a tiny fraction of total. With print revenues falling sharply, they're really going to have to figure out how to make more money from the site, and fast.

JTMan

bogmanfan wrote: »

This is the interesting part. They are already claiming to be Ireland's biggest news site, and are ploughing resources into their online operation. Yet the earnings from the site are a tiny fraction of total. With print revenues falling sharply, they're really going to have to figure out how to make more money from the site, and fast.

Exactly. €3.9 million of the €157.8 million is from digital advertising and INM have zero digital subscription revenue.

The INM 'digital audience' noise is a red herring when revenue is tiny from this group.

The bulk of the remainder of INM revenue comes from:
(1) Print circulation which is on the decline,
(2) Newspaper advertising which is on the decline,
(3) Stake in APN which INM have taken a hit on,
(4) Loss making stake in INM Eduction which is being sold,
(5) Newspaper distribution revenue, via Newspread, which is on the decline.

Loafing Oaf

JTMan wrote: »

Exactly. €3.9 million of the €157.8 million is from digital advertising and INM have zero digital subscription revenue.

The INM 'digital audience' noise is a red herring when revenue is tiny from this group.

The bulk of the remainder of INM revenue comes from:
(1) Print circulation which is on the decline,
(2) Newspaper advertising which is on the decline,
(3) Stake in APN which INM have taken a hit on,
(4) Loss making stake in INM Eduction which is being sold,
(5) Newspaper distribution revenue, via Newspread, which is on the decline.

I reckon their unspoken 'survival strategy' is to wait for the fairly imminent demises of the Examiner and Times so they'll have the daily quality market to themselves...

IRE60

Just as a stinging aside:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/aug/28/irish-independent-nationalunionofjournalists

The Enemy of my enemy is my friend!!

IRE60

a little away from the original

http://www.ilevel.ie/media-blog/print/jnrs-irish-newspaper-readership-2014

I found it difficult in the reporting in today's papers to get comparatives. If you want something done......