what will happen in 2018?

IRE60

I thought this might be interesting to illicit the opinions here.
What do people think will happen in the media landscape in the next 12 months?
I’ll kick off with a few thoughts:
I’d say a few of the regionals are struggling – and if not backed by a larger entity, some might fail.
The Times acquisition : will they keep all the bits – do they want to be in all the parts they bought?
The Sunday Business Post looks a little isolated and is now the only single brand publisher, granted a specialist market. They were sniffing around for suitors mid last year but the dance card is looking decidedly blank at this point.
I would keep a weather eye on the Trinity Media proposed acquisition of the express and star – it may have a ripple effect here. The whole Daily Star tie up with the Indo is at some point going to unravel (closing the Daily Star website was the sound of the stating gun for me!)
In the near future I think the DOCE is going to squeeze the twins of IN&M – I think the departure of Its CEO (and Financial Director who was also under their care) will grow legs and now introduce ‘security specialists' running through their servers at the behest of the Chairman - Smiley's people stuff.
I could continue.... Anyone else?

jmcc

Don't know if these opinions are illicit but here goes:
Overextension with the Examiner leading to problems (not necessarily complete financial failure but probably more job losses in both newspapers).

Circulation figures continue to collapse.


Regards...jmcc

manageit

Are the main papers stuck at €2.00 for weekly editions? Does anybody dare take the first step?

The Times of London continues to sell at €1.00 and in a contracting market their 10k circulation must be taking circulation from somebody, probably the Indo and Irish Times. In the case of The London Times what their long term ambitions are is hard to know, they have a limited Irish input, but their Irish sport coverage is excellent.

The Irish Times must be hurting week day circulation is certainly less than 50k, and they have a very well paid staff. Will they be the first to increase the price. It seems to be the model, forget trying to attract new buyers make the loyal buyers pay more, as in The Guardian, now £2.00.

IRE60

manageit wrote: »

Are the main papers stuck at €2.00 for weekly editions? Does anybody dare take the first step?

The Times of London continues to sell at €1.00 and in a contracting market their 10k circulation must be taking circulation from somebody, probably the Indo and Irish Times. In the case of The London Times what their long term ambitions are is hard to know, they have a limited Irish input, but their Irish sport coverage is excellent.

The Irish Times must be hurting week day circulation is certainly less than 50k, and they have a very well paid staff. Will they be the first to increase the price. It seems to be the model, forget trying to attract new buyers make the loyal buyers pay more, as in The Guardian, now £2.00.

The adage of lies, dammed lies and statistics applies here.
The Times Ireland number of 10k deserves further scrutiny. The ABC was 9940 of which 4000 were retail cash sales as in ker-ching – the rest were 'multiple copy sales' bulks. Having said that, the 6000 free copies have to be having a force somewhere else.
My posting link days are behind me (your honour) but you can tip over to ilevel dot ie for all the numbers.
Last Irish Times figure was c62,500. Lob 7% off that – 58,000 is where I’d expect them to be – having said that they have a decent digital base (not in the 62,500 – that’s print only) and there may be some further migration from print to digital that would push that figure lower

jmcc

IRE60 wrote: »

Last Irish Times figure was c62,500. Lob 7% off that – 58,000 is where I’d expect them to be – having said that they have a decent digital base (not in the 62,500 – that’s print only) and there may be some further migration from print to digital that would push that figure lower

Wouldn't trust the Irish Times digital figures unless they had been properly audited (externally) and categorised by one-off, short term and long term subscriptions. Remember the 38K from the last paywall venture?

Regards...jmcc

L1011

The thing I'd like to see is how many of the "digital subscriptions" are the ones given for a fraction of the price with a delivery sub.


I would be counted as a digital sub due to that and I know of two others also, one probably uses the site/app rarely enough that the free allowance would do