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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

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Gloomtastic!

From the Dublin City forum.......

odyssey06 wrote: »

The publisher of two free local Dublin newspapers, the Northside People and the Southside People, has closed its business and is seeking to appoint a liquidator.

I will miss the 'down memory lane' section of the paper, and the diverting headlines from Mrs Browns Boys

https://www.thejournal.ie/dublin-people-northside-people-close-5095392-May2020/

Muahahaha

Unsurprising to see that the freesheets are badly hit when 80% of the print space was advertising. But Id wonder with the 350 a week payment for staff could they not have held on? The restrictions wont last forever and there will still be a demand for local papers when this is over.

JTMan

Muahahaha wrote: »

But Id wonder with the 350 a week payment for staff could they not have held on?

The statement from the group hinted at problems before Covid-19, they were struggling to compete with digital advertising. Sure they could wait, but if there were pre-existing issues, rental payments and other costs, and no level of certainty as to when normality will return, they may have made the right decision.

Celtic Media own 49% of People Newspapers. Celtic Media lost the Reach printing contract and now this. Things cannot be going well for Celtic Media.

L1011

Does the Irish Times still own the majority of the Dublin Gazette? Its out of print at the moment but still updating online.

JTMan

Irish Times own 50% of Gazette.

Source: https://www.ccpc.ie › 2017/05PDF
irish times/gazette group

silverharp

Buzzfeed is laying off staff, so its not all bad

https://twitter.com/CNNBusiness/status/1260639218575032321

dulpit

silverharp wrote: »

Buzzfeed is laying off staff, so its not all bad

https://twitter.com/CNNBusiness/status/1260639218575032321

Staff losing jobs is not all bad?

silverharp

dulpit wrote: »

Staff losing jobs is not all bad?

they can #learntocode? All these algorithm driven outfits are a pox and an unsustainable one anyway, they have been decimated in the last couple of years as they werent making money just burning through he cash that been invested in them.

jmcc

silverharp wrote: »

they can #learntocode? All these algorithm driven outfits are a pox and an unsustainable one anyway, they have been decimated in the last couple of years as they werent making money just burning through he cash that been invested in them.

It is not so much a case of #learntocode as being replaced by software. Learning to "code" and becoming a productive programmer are two very different things.

The burnrate (the money spent over the time from startup/investment until profitability) was probably horrific for some of these clickbait publications and the advertising supported model did not seem to be working out. Many people use ad blockers these days.

The other aspect is that the target market for many of these publications are either unemployed or temporarily laid off. That means that advertisers have little interest in advertising high end products and services to these demographics. Fewer high paying ads on the sites means that earnings take a dive.

Regards...jmcc

JTMan

Quartz to close UK office. 80 job loses.

Examiner appointed to Joe.ie parent.

The online media losses continue.

dohboy

Irish Times reaches 120,000 subscriptions. I now await as this forum will tell me why this is bad news

https://twitter.com/MarkHennessy/status/1261595988935966720?s=19

JTMan

dohboy wrote: »

Irish Times reaches 120,000 subscriptions.

This self reported figure is misleading and lacks context.

The ABC Irish Times audit puts the digital subs figure at 24,389 as per the cert here. But this is misleading too.

The Irish Times include free student subs and free intro subs in their figure. By one count, free student subs make up at least half of the figure.

ABC only include Irish Times subs that include an ePaper. Bizarre decision but that is the way they measure it. The basic Irish Times sub does not include an epaper.

The real figure for paid-for Irish Time subs is somewhere in-between 24k and 120k.

jmcc

JTMan wrote: »

This self reported figure is misleading and lacks context.

The ABC Irish Times audit puts the digital subs figure at 24,389 as per the cert here. But this is misleading too.

The Irish Times include free student subs and free intro subs in their figure. By one count, free student subs make up at least half of the figure.

ABC only include Irish Times subs that include an ePaper. Bizarre decision but that is the way they measure it. The basic Irish Times sub does not include an epaper.

The real figure for paid-for Irish Time subs is somewhere in-between 24k and 120k.

Don't forget that the duration of the subscription is important.

Regards...jmcc

L1011

Examiners in at Maximum Media now.

Muahahaha

JTMan wrote: »

This self reported figure is misleading and lacks context.

The ABC Irish Times audit puts the digital subs figure at 24,389 as per the cert here. But this is misleading too.

The Irish Times include free student subs and free intro subs in their figure. By one count, free student subs make up at least half of the figure.

ABC only include Irish Times subs that include an ePaper. Bizarre decision but that is the way they measure it. The basic Irish Times sub does not include an epaper.

The real figure for paid-for Irish Time subs is somewhere in-between 24k and 120k.

They're basically just fooling themselves saying they have 120,000 subs when they've tens of thousands of students included in that figure who are unlikely to actually read it. Its the Emperors new clothes.

Would be interesting to know what the true figure is.

JTMan

The NY Times have a very detailed excellent article here on job losses across US Media.

As someone on Twitter said:
"To put things in perspective: After decades of layoffs, there were 88K newsroom jobs by the end of 2019, counting digital. According to the NYT, there have been ~36k lost jobs since then."

Shocking destruction of media jobs.

L1011

ABC now offering private reporting - which I suspect is to try get publications back in the fold; but is also likely to result in everyone going private so we can't see the rot anymore

https://www.abc.org.uk/newslink/113-abc-news/928-abc-introduces-new-reporting-options-for-newsbrands

IRE60

....and we'd like to thank the ABC for all their hard work over the last ninety years and we wish them well.......

"the publisher has chosen to manage their ABC data themselves"
"will now be a rolling release of data throughout the month"
"a contact at the publisher from whom ABC certificates can be requested"

Slán abhaile!

JTMan

Sad that this is likely to mean a significant reduction in transparency in data on newspaper reach.

Will be interesting to see which newspaper groups opt for public data if any. When do we find out? Can we search for April 2020 data now on a publication by publication basis?

What effect does this have on the tiny number of publications left in the Island of Ireland report?

JTMan

I see the publications that are public have their ABC numbers on iLevel and Press Gazette.

Some shocking drops.

silverharp

Saw that The Atlantic is cutting staff by 20% even though their readership is up lately but I assume the advertising must be down

JTMan

silverharp wrote: »

Saw that The Atlantic is cutting staff by 20% even though their readership is up lately but I assume the advertising must be down

Yeah, advertising well down and their tag on events business has gone to the ground too.

jmcc

More content generators being replaced by software:

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/local-business/microsoft-is-cutting-dozens-of-msn-news-production-workers-and-replacing-them-with-artificial-intelligence/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/may/30/microsoft-sacks-journalists-to-replace-them-with-robots

Perhaps the Gruaniad could finally become profitable?

Regards...jmcc

IRE60

It was going to happen! The Irish Times along with Examiner and Echo are now listed as ‘No longer registered’ on the ABC website. Also, the SBP didn’t file a cert in Feb for the July-Dec numbers. I asked the ABC what the story was and they politely steered me to the publisher. I see now that they are also “No longer registered”.
It’s a bit of a body blow for the ABC, who are really just feeling the pinch in the print business like the brands are.
Telegraph pulled out of the ABC in Jan and there may well be a domino effect coming.

Muahahaha

A body blow for the ABC but also for the advertising in print Id say too. Theres a saying that half of all money spent on advertising is a waste but the trick is to know which half. Now add in newspapers not even revealing their circulation numbers (which were already dubious anyway) and confidence in their claimed reach of print advertising falls through the floor.

It would seem they are obviously embarrassed by the falling numbers and now want to hide them knowing well they are only going to get worse. That has the double edged sword of removing transparency from the market, a brand manager with an advertising budget of a million plus a year is going to be questioning the value for money in spending it on print advertising while the newspaper themselves are hiding the circulation numbers. Why would a brand manager spend money when they dont truly know what they are buying, all while other channels like TV, radio and digital have verifiable numbers.

IRE60

The ABC are simply auditors and reporters of those audits. The decline in numbers is nothing to do with them! Again, they simply report them. As someone who worked on certification for a newsbrand for a few years, the ABC the numbers are verifiable numbers. There is no hiding.

Radio research is a face to face interview -questionable at times. Digital, I refer you to Maximum Media. TV – TAM is a decent enough product.
So, the criticism of the ABC, in this case, is misdirected. It’s like shouting at Bryan Dobson for reading out bad news!

NIMAN

I'm not sure what is going on with the Indo website but they have match reports from euro2012?

Muahahaha

oh no Im not criticising the ABC, quite the opposite. When I said 'they' in terms of the embarrassment of falling numbers I meant the newspapers are embarrassed and want to hide it, not the ABC, sorry if that wasnt clear.

Im making the point that newspapers titles abandoning the long held practice of their numbers being independently audited removes transparency from the advertising market. Without the ABC circulation audit brand managers who need to assess their advertising spend vis a vis the reach of that spend are now doing so blind and in the dark. That would surely frighten any brand manager, after all you cannot count what you cannot see. The ABC fulfilled that vital role but now with newspapers opting out of it then trust and confidence in circulation numbers is gone. A market functions off information, remove that and it isnt a level playing field and advertisers will look elsewhere.

IRE60

Muahahaha wrote: »

oh no Im not criticising the ABC, quite the opposite. When I said 'they' in terms of the embarrassment of falling numbers I meant the newspapers are embarrassed and want to hide it, not the ABC, sorry if that wasnt clear.

Im making the point that newspapers titles abandoning the long held practice of their numbers being independently audited removes transparency from the advertising market. Without the ABC circulation audit brand managers who need to assess their advertising spend vis a vis the reach of that spend are now doing so blind and in the dark. That would surely frighten any brand manager, after all you cannot count what you cannot see. The ABC fulfilled that vital role but now with newspapers opting out of it then trust and confidence in circulation numbers is gone. A market functions off information, remove that and it isnt a level playing field and advertisers will look elsewhere.

Crystal clear now! and I agree with you. What metric do you supply a potential advertiser. I've said it before - an old boss of mine used to say the a Publishers Statement (un-audited circulation number) is as sincere as a kiss from a whore!

L1011

This is why the ABC are now offering private audited figures (hide the shame but have something to give to advertisers who want some proof of value); but beyond Newscorp nobody seems to be using them yet.