The decline continues

IRE60

Via the Campaign site - report on the worsening state of print. (Cant find it on Neilsons' site). Some of the budget cuts are savage:


Newspaper revenues fall amid talk of joint ad sales

The national newspaper advertising slump has worsened since the Brexit vote, with revenues crashing 18% year on year in August, making it the worst-performing month of the year so far.

Print ad sales dived 14%, or £95m, in the first eight months of the year to £575m from £670m in the same period a year ago, according to Nielsen.

Newspapers got a brief respite around the Brexit referendum, when ad sales fell only 4.5% in June and 11% in July. Every other month this year has seen a fall of at least 14%.

The newspaper print ad market fell 13% in 2015 and 9% in 2014.

A number of high-profile brands abruptly slashed their print ad expenditure in favour of Facebook and other digital channels.

Tesco cut spend by 85% year on year in the first eight months of 2016 to £1.8m, O2 reduced its outlay on print ads by 45% to £4m and Marks & Spencer dropped its spend by 28% to £7m.

Worsening revenues will add to pressure on newspaper owners to consider pooling their ad sales in a single sales house in order to gain scale in their negotiations with media agencies, improve efficiency and cut costs.

News UK, Trinity Mirror, Telegraph Media Group, Guardian Media Group, DMGT and Northern & Shell have been in talks since at least May, when Campaign first reported that discussions had begun.

Steve Booth, chairman of MC&C and co-founder of BLM, has been leading the initiative, dubbed Project Juno.

Newspapers are understood to have commissioned Enders Analysis and lawyers to report on how a joint ad sales house might work and the likely obstacles emerging from a Competition

IRE60

There's no end to this, DMGT trading update:

dmg media: year to date underlying# revenues declined by 2%. Circulation revenues were down 2% due to declining volumes, although benefited from the implementation of cover price increases of the Monday to Friday editions of the Daily Mail, in February 2016, and The Mail on Sunday, in July 2016. Both the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday continue to hold significant market share of 23.1% and 22.0% respectively*. The disposal of Wowcher, which occurred in November 2015, had an adverse revenue impact with dmg media's total reported revenues declining by 5% in the eleven month period.
Total year to date underlying# advertising revenues across dmg media were down by an underlying# 4%, with a 12% decline in print advertising being partly offset by 17% growth in digital advertising. For the five weeks since 21 August 2016, total advertising revenues for the business have decreased by an underlying# 10%. As previously indicated, the reported full year results will benefit from the inclusion of 53 weeks of trading, compared to 52 weeks in FY 2015.

Mail businesses: MailOnline's advertising revenues in the eleven months increased by an underlying# £13 million (18%), partly offsetting a decline of £20 million (13%) at the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday. Underlying# advertising revenues across the Mail businesses as a whole, for print and digital combined, were consequently down by 3%.

MailOnline: year to date underlying# digital advertising growth of 18% reflected continued encouraging growth in both the UK and the US. MailOnline's global monthly unique browsers in August 2016 stood at 248 million, up 30 million or 14% on last year, and average global daily unique browsers were 15.3 million, an increase of 11% on last year.

# Underlying revenue is revenue on a like-for-like basis, adjusted for constant exchange rates, disposals, closures, non-annual events occurring in the current and prior year and acquisitions.


Mods: Any chance of having a 'sticky' for Media Results. Many of the postings are simply results based for Media companies. Rather than opening a new post each time it might be beneficial to have one thread just devoted to results. One stop shop?


C

JTMan

Agreed with the suggestion of a media financial results thread.

This is just simply astonishing from Trinity Mirror:

"print advertising revenues fell by 21% and newspaper sales revenues dropped by 6% in the third quarter. Total revenues fell by 9% in the third quarter, slightly more than the 8% drop reported in the first half of the year. The company said publishing revenue is down 10%; within this total print revenues fell 12% while digital climbed by 11%. Digital display advertising and transactional revenues grew by 24% as the company’s online audience increased."

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail owner is cutting 400 jobs.

Also, The Telegraph has written down the value of their newspapers by 150 million.

I always expected a slow steady decline of the newspaper industry over the coming years. The decline has unquestionably accelerated and is anything but slow decline.

Independent Star should have their results on CRO.ie next week which will also make interesting reading.

JTMan

Independent Star (owners of The Irish Daily Star) had their 2015 accounts displayed on CRO.ie today.

- Revenue down from €21.7m to €20.2m.
- Cost of sales down from €13.8m to €12.5m.
- Distribution costs up from €3.5m to €3.7m.
- Admin costs down from €1.8m to €1.5m.
- Exception costs down from €0.8m to €0.2m.
- Profit up from €1.3m to €1.9m.
- Dividends up from €1.0m to €1.6m.
- Staff numbers down from 61 to 57.

Overall:
- Revenue continue to trend in the wrong direction thanks to lower newspaper sales and advertising sales. Their bread and butter continues on a downward spiral.
- Profit increased due to lower costs of sales (possibly due to the Irish Times printing contract), lower exceptional costs (less redundancies in 2015) and lower admin costs.
- While costs are being very well controlled and cut, there is a limit to how much further costs can be cut and revenue is only going in one direction.

IRE60

Very interesting:

• 7% decline in revenue is about as expected.
• Costs - yea you can still try and cut back - but there's a floor at some point. Interesting if the IT contract is a cost saver.
• Distribution costs up! Now that's, possibly, a little strange - they did (if the addled memory is correct) they did a part work for the euros with stickers etc - that might have added a few quid to the bill (and to revenue).
• Margin went from 6% to 9% - little healthier - but that's just going to be eroded as they hit the floor in cost savings and the revenue continues to fall.
• Shareholders took a fair chunk in dividends - but I suppose they took the added extra profit earned in the year and in both years leaking 300k in the company - take the money now!

JTMan

"Cost of sales" is mainly salaries and printing costs (with distribution costs being a segregated P&L line). Salaries (including social security and pensions) went down from €5.3m to €4.7m. So €0.5m saving came from salaries so I guess the rest of the cost of sales saving was a printing cost saving but it could be something else as there are other smaller expenses inside this expense line.

From looking at the INM and IS accounts, I am beginning to think that Newspread and perhaps EMN News have been hiking their prices to publishers.

Yeah, Dirty Desmond (who interestingly resigned as director on 1 January 2015 but still owns 50%) seems to be using IS for pocket-money while he can. Northern Shell are making losses so he is not getting dividends with his other media interests.

expectationlost

is it a decline or a change?

IRE60

A seismic shift leading to a decline!

There's a good bit in the middle of the BBC Media Show podcast on the changing fortunes of the dailymail.co.uk
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07wn3zz

JTMan

expectationlost wrote: »

is it a decline or a change?

More a decline than a change. Revenue from print is not being replaced like-for-like by digital revenue. Not even close. Take Independent Star, for example, whereby they have virtually no digital revenue and print is in a terminal decline curve.

expectationlost

JTMan wrote: »

More a decline than a change. Revenue from print is not being replaced like-for-like by digital revenue. Not even close. Take Independent Star, for example, whereby they have virtually no digital revenue and print is in a terminal decline curve.

who cares about the Star?

JTMan

expectationlost wrote: »

who cares about the Star?

Same point applies to nearly all other publications. Decline superceeds change from a revenue perspective.

IRE60

expectationlost wrote: »

who cares about the Star?

The 60k people who buy it every morning and the 60 people who work there.

expectationlost

IRE60 wrote: »

The 60k people who buy it every morning and the 60 people who work there.

change happens

IRE60

expectationlost wrote: »

change happens

Oh - believe me - it does. Without doing the interstpeak on it, change is one thing, but 'disruption' is where the industry is at. Its like chaos theory meets business!

Loafing Oaf

JTMan wrote: »

I always expected a slow steady decline of the newspaper industry over the coming years. The decline has unquestionably accelerated and is anything but slow decline.

Actually I would have expected stuff like the Indie going online only to have started happening years ago. Seems to me print circulation has been falling steadily for years but most everything else in the newspaper industry has been staying the same, defying the laws of economic gravity. Maybe now long-held-off changes, including paper closures and mergers, are going to start happening fast over the next few years...

IRE60

On the subject of the Indi

Independent Print, the online-only title’s publisher, is not likely to publish accounts for 2016 until next year, but Lebedev has disclosed some financials to the Financial Times.

The company expects to record revenues of £20m in 2016 and claims its digital advertising revenues have grown by 45% year on year.

"By going online-only we freed ourselves from the unwieldy infrastructure of print, and allowed ourselves to be far more flexible," Lebedev said.

"We are profitable for the first time in 23 years, which brings with it new opportunities."

In August it emerged that the title had grown its overall readership by close to 50% in its first quarter as an online-only publication.

JTMan

FT: The future of newspapers: owners seek safety in numbers. The outlook worsens.

https://t.co/gjBijnB2b2

JTMan

NY Times newspaper results:

the New York Times reported a steep decline in print advertising revenue for the third quarter, adding to the newspaper industry’s woes.
For the quarter, print advertising revenue fell 19 per cent, driving an 8 per cent decline in total advertising revenue.
The drop followed a 14 per cent decline in print advertising revenue in the second quarter.

Digital revenue increased but did not cover print losses.

IRE60

Looks lie the deals are not going through either - seemingly Gannett bankers pulled the finance in the 11th.

Gannett Co. on Tuesday abruptly ended its six-month effort to acquire Tronc, the owner of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, Baltimore Sun and several other newspapers.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-gannett-tronc-offer-20161101-story.html

IRE60

Telegraph splitting content - killing paywall and access to "premium" content at £2 a week - not available through f/b. It's a good start!

http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/telegraph-axes-metered-paywall-launches-premium-service/1414403

JTMan

WSJ has let staff go and reduced the size of their print edition.

http://www.politico.com/media/story/2016/11/wall-street-journal-to-consolidate-print-edition-004843

IRE60

I get the distinct impression from some of the recent articles dealing with the USA that the papers carry very 'bloated' sections for particular strata of a given metropolis - which are no longer paying for themselves - the supplements I mean).
The Sunday Times have just poached the editor of Elle to head up (something like) exclusive content and also be head of the Style Mag. Chase the money!
I don't think for a moment that a decent long-form article has seen its day, actually in the face of 140 characters and the standard that's building, they are a welcome relief.
But print is so massively cost consuming, so some cull has to be expected.

On that, I read an article on the speech an owner gave, reproduced in print then repurposed for a blog, in the last days of a Chicago evening paper in the '70's. Delivered to the newsroom as he was about to flick off the lights.
Dispersion of city dwellers to the 'sticks' where it was too costly to ship 10 papers to was one of the factors. TV was the other!
There are parallels in the article mirroring today's print media - but different advisories.
I'll try and see if I can dig it up again and post it here.

L1011

Yoy're definitely on to something there - the "color sections" in some US papers are immense in size and hence cost - both printing and content. They're a long way off the 5 kilo NYT era (although it seems that was bollox, as nobody would get every supplement) but they make even the Sunday Times or Saturday Guardian's level of added sections seem small and all very thin.

IRE60

IRE60 wrote: »

I'll try and see if I can dig it up again and post it here.

love quoting myself!

http://newsosaur.blogspot.ie/2014/03/so-long-again-chicago-daily-news.html

JTMan

Journal Media records €574,000 loss for 2015

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/journal-media-records-574-000-loss-for-2015-1.2880822

JTMan

The Sunday Business Post have a short article on the Irish Times ...

- The Irish Times is seeking 15 redundancies.
- Digital subscribers are now 50k BUT this includes non-paying subscribers such as students.
- 1.1. million operational loss in 2015.
- Re-org going on to focus 66% on digital and 33% on print.

IRE60

JTMan wrote: »

- Re-org going on to focus 66% on digital and 33% on print.

That's fine - in theory - but where's the money!

JTMan

The SIndo have done a hit piece on their rival the Sunday Business Post here.

Some interesting parts to the article:
- SBP has hiked its price by 7%.
- Sunrise Media is now the name of the media group that owns the SBP.
- The main shareholder in Sunrise Media is Conor Killeen's Key Capital. (As with the prior corporate structure).
- Growing online revenues is taking longer than expected. (no surprise there).
- Profit of under 100k last year. (pathetic return).

IRE60

I'm all for facts - which the Beano managed to twist- on the circulation of the post they say:
"Down 5pc on the first half of 2015" it's actually 3.5% - it's simply factually incorrect - which casts doubt on anything else in the article.
Given they are down 7% in the same period they are in no position to preach!
It's simply a bitchy article - not newsworthy or accurate.

expectationlost

JTMan wrote: »

The SIndo have done a hit piece on their rival the Sunday Business Post here.

Some interesting parts to the article:
- SBP has hiked its price by 7%.
- Sunrise Media is now the name of the media group that owns the SBP.
- The main shareholder in Sunrise Media is Conor Killeen's Key Capital. (As with the prior corporate structure).
- Growing online revenues is taking longer than expected. (no surprise there).
- Profit of under 100k last year. (pathetic return).

their website has gotten better

expectationlost

JTMan wrote: »

WSJ has let staff go and reduced the size of their print edition.

http://www.politico.com/media/story/2016/11/wall-street-journal-to-consolidate-print-edition-004843

good the Irish Times is still too tall

expectationlost

IRE60 wrote: »

Telegraph splitting content - killing paywall and access to "premium" content at £2 a week - not available through f/b. It's a good start!

http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/telegraph-axes-metered-paywall-launches-premium-service/1414403

the fall of hard paywalls! happy to have opinion behind a paywall, saves the rest of us from it, see the Independent has "datawall" on its opinion pieces now

IRE60

Maybe it just had to be spelled out - in detail - all very true

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/oct/24/a-print-publishing-reality-advertisers-not-readers-are-the-customers

expectationlost

IRE60 wrote: »

Maybe it just had to be spelled out - in detail - all very true

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/oct/24/a-print-publishing-reality-advertisers-not-readers-are-the-customers

something highlighted to me when I learned Spike TV was original started by Insurance company as channel to place its ads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nashville_Network

IRE60

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/before-one-off-costs-times-newspapers-made-11-2m-last-year-but-the-sun-lost-48m/

JTMan

Dirty Desmond is bailing out of his sinking ship ...

Trinity Mirror and David Montgomery are looking to acquire 80% and 20% respectively of Northern and Shell. Northern and Shell own 50% of Independent Star who publish the Irish Daily Star. If the acquisition goes ahead, Independent Star will be 50% owned buy INM, 10% owned by Trinity Mirror and 40% owned by David Montgomery. More from the Indo here.

IRE60

There's a bit of 'smoke and mirrors' when Desmond nearly pulled the plug on the Irish Daily Star agreement (Royals with the guns out pic). After there was a 'license' agreement if I remember correctly and the ins and out of that I don't know.

There is massive replication, currently, in traditional media outlets. Each paper replicating the other in the backrooms - and someone will look at streamlining that.

Interesting one here
http://www.independent.ie/business/media/proposed-acquisition-of-celtic-media-group-by-inm-referred-for-review-35360591.html

The Celtic media deal is being referred for a full media merger review to the BAI. While the CCPC looked at (and approved) the proposed deal the BAI look like it will take a 'helicopter' view. The CCPC looked at individual markets, seven I think, and concluded there was no threat to those markets.

However the bigger view has to be considered. The newspaper group would increase its footprint, on a national basis, substantially should the deal go ahead. Lets not get onto the other media interests of the largest shareholder of IN&M and how, again if the deal went ahead, that may dovetail into a sprawling media company.

JTMan

A Mirror-Express merger would once have been huge. Now it’s just hugely depressing

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/15/mirror-express-merger-clare-hollingworth?CMP=twt_a-media_b-gdnmedia

Back then the Daily Mirror sold 5.1m copies a day. Now that’s 733,000. Back then the Daily Express sold 3.9m. That’s a mere 396,000 today. And the figures of Sunday declines are even more staggering. From 4.2m at the Sunday Express to 341,000. From 5.5m at The People to an ever-shrinking 248,000.


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Such shrinkage, of course, is the driving force behind any deal. Richard Desmond, like other Express owners before him, has been content to squeeze every last sliver of profit out of accelerating decline. But all squeezed things finally die.

IRE60

In an effort to try and stop hemorrhaging money, the Guardian are looking (seemingly) at dropping their current newsprint format - Berliner - and moving to a tabloid format - slightly smaller.
It would mean that they could move away from their current press which they built and commissioned - first used in 2005.
Depending on how they did the accounting, they could have written down the press at this point.
They are reportedly looking to farm out the printing - there are many options in terms of plants if they move to a tabloid, They could also farm out the pre-press now that it has moved to a 'standard' tabloid format.
Interesting times

IRE60

Interview with Roy Greenslade before he signs off

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/roy-greenslade-interview-no-blog-or-start-up-sets-the-agenda-or-holds-power-to-account-like-newspapers-still-do/

Thinks that one or two nationals will disappear in the next few years. Interesting comment about Ireland!

JTMan

The New York Times results are out. Despite the headlines that Trump is wrong that the NYT is 'failing', the results, from an account perspective are not good.

FT article here.

Digital success is not yet offsetting an industry-wide slump in print advertising, however, and the company’s revenues and profit both declined in the quarter and for the full year.

Fourth-quarter net income sank 28 per cent to $37.1m, or 23 cents a share, from $51.7m, or 32 cents a share, the previous year. Revenue was down 1 per cent to $439.7m, as declines in print advertising offset gains in circulation and digital advertising.

jmcc

JTMan wrote: »

The New York Times results are out. Despite the headlines that Trump is wrong that the NYT is 'failing', the results, from an account perspective are not good.

FT article here.

Think that there was a comment from the NYT a while ago that it wouldn't engage in clickbait journalism (Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land mentioned it, I think). They may have to rethink that so that they can target the clickbait at the proper demographics. Wonder how the SBP and the IT are doing with their paywalls? Also noticed that the Indo now has a begging notice (please turn off the adblocker) when you use an adblocker on the site.

Regards...jmcc

Loafing Oaf

Latest ABCs, thread title seems entirely appropriate despite IT spin:

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/irish-times-reports-15-rise-in-customers-paying-for-digital-content-1.2978411

JTMan

Why was the separate thread on the ABCA numbers deleted?

Excellent iLevel analysis on the numbers here: http://www.ilevel.ie/media-blog/print/102928-irish-newspaper-circulation-july-dec-2016-island-of-ireland-report

Michael O Toole

Why was IRE60 banned?

Loafing Oaf

Examiner and SBP round 30K. How are these papers still operating?

Delacent

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Examiner and SBP round 30K. How are these papers still operating?

That'd be over 120,000 readers if you believe their figures.

I can never understand how the media can claim readership of 4 adults per copy

L1011

SBP attracts specialist advertisers for their audience makeup and charge accordingly. It's borderline profitable. Examiner - no idea.

Loafing Oaf

L1011 wrote: »

SBP attracts specialist advertisers for their audience makeup and charge accordingly. It's borderline profitable.

So theoretically the circulation decline can continue indefinitely: as long as Peter Sutherland a few of his mates are still buying they'll keep publishing.

JTMan

Michael O Toole wrote: »

Why was IRE60 banned?

At a wild guess, for posting links to his blog. Great shame. He added a lot of value here. I have contacted the mods, would encourage others to do the same.

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Examiner and SBP round 30K. How are these papers still operating?

Examiner (Landmark Media Investments) is still going thanks to massive cost cutting with a large number of staff let go, an examinership and restructure, AIB financial support and family financial and ownership ties.

SBP is still going thanks to Conor Killeen and his personal financial support for the paper.

Back to the ABC results:
- The Herald, The Irish Daily Star, the Sunday World are all screwed. Circulation is down circa. 60% inside the last decade of so. No real digital strategy that is working. D day cannot be far away.

An Ciarraioch

JTMan wrote: »

At a wild guess, for posting links to his blog. Great shame. He added a lot of value here. I have contacted the mods, would encourage others to do the same.



Examiner (Landmark Media Investments) is still going thanks to massive cost cutting with a large number of staff let go, an examinership and restructure, AIB financial support and family financial and ownership ties.

SBP is still going thanks to Conor Killeen and his personal financial support for the paper.

Back to the ABC results:
- The Herald, The Irish Daily Star, the Sunday World are all screwed. Circulation is down circa. 60% inside the last decade of so. No real digital strategy that is working. D day cannot be far away.

The Examiner still has a regional market in Cork, Kerry and Limerick, so looking at that 30k in terms of a Munster context, it may be manageable. See they've moved to free member registration to access online articles - is this the first move towards a paywall?