CorpComms Magazine

The Newspaper Society, which claims to be 'the voice of local media', will have to update its website very soon. It states that there are 1,300 local and regional newspapers across the UK. Not for much longer. An estimated 40 per cent decline in advertising revenue is threatening to overwhelm the local newspaper industry and at least 50 titles closed down in the 13 months to the end of January.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has calculated more than 900 confirmed redundancies in the medium since July while its general secretary Jeremy Dear believes that as many as 350 local newspapers could close in the next three years.

'It's possible there could be a few hundred that shut down - easily a quarter of the current number. There might be one-third the number of local newspaper jobs, with lots of dailies going weekly,' he says.

Northcliffe, the 113-titles strong regional newspaper arm of the Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT), recently said that 1,000 people will go this year, saving the business £20 million, leaving just 3,500 staff.

SPECIAL CHALLENGES

A terrible time for local newspaper journalists and non-editorial staff also means challenges for corporate communicators, both in local government and the private sector. Debbie Byers, chairwoman at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Scotland committee, has seen the merger of the Daily Record and Sunday Mail's editorial production operation, which resulted in 70 job losses.

Byers says: 'Local newspapers have always played an important role within local communities and you can get a real sense of the issues that drive an area, which make them a vital research tool for people in PR who need to make sure campaigns resonate with their target audiences.

'However, traditional mediums like newspapers are no longer considered routes that should always be taken to effectively reach communities, as modern lifestyles have changed the way that people take in information and news.'

As readership levels have declined, so corporate communicators are being forced to look at what the CIPR describes as 'more grassroots events' and approaching public influencers, such as people who run well-read blogs.

Local authority communicators are particularly affected. The local media was always a direct route to getting policy messages to the public. Matt Beer, head of marketing and communications at City of York Council, points out that The Press, which is part of the Newsquest media empire, is the only major York-dedicated newspaper. With a circulation of 35,000, and an estimated 2.5 people reading every copy, it reaches two-fifths of the city's population.

However, Beer is now looking at more direct ways of reaching his audience. At present it distributes a newsletter to residents every three months. 'We would quite like to have a monthly publication, as a quarterly is really quite a low key thing,' says Beer. 'The council has important changes that it needs to tell people, so there is some talk of making it a more regular publication.'

COUNCILS PARTLY RESPONSIBLE

And that could prove to be a problem for The Press. Councils have been accused of taking sources of revenue away from local media, as they might use display and recruitment advertising to fund their newsletter. Beer admits: 'Advertising has gone through the floor, and depending how you finance the council publication, it can take money out of the pockets of the local paper.'

Tower Hamlets in East London has been hit by this particular criticism. It publishes a free newspaper, called East End Life, which has a 99,000 circulation. The local commercial newspaper is the East London Advertiser, published by Norwich-based group Archant.

Former Archant boss John Fry, who is now chief executive of heavily indebted Yorkshire Post publisher Johnston Press, said earlier this year that council publications threaten his industry, citing the Life's impact on the Advertiser.

He decried council funding of a rival newspaper as 'unfair'. Critics also believe that councils issuing their own newspapers can help kill off publications that keep a close watch on authorities.

PUBLIC INFORMATION

Even Andy Burnham, the culture secretary, joined in the attacks last month stating in an interview with Scarborough Evening News that council newspapers' impact on commercial rivals was 'top of my in-tray at the moment'.

Charles Skinner, head of communications at Tower Hamlets, counters: 'These [types of publication] are two different beasts. We need to keep people informed of decisions and policy. The commercial newspapers cover a whole range of news, including, quite rightly, holding the authority to account.'

He also defends the use of advertising in the council newspaper, pointing out that 'offsetting the costs can only be good for residents' who would otherwise cover its funding through their taxes. 'It's up to advertisers where they go,' Skinner adds, when pressed over whether this takes vital revenue away from commercial operations.

Should an area lose local newspapers, Skinner believes that councils would have to step up current communications drives, such as direct leafleting and newsletters, to ensure that their messages are heard. Also, he cites the Internet as a growing source for residents to get information on local events.

However, newspaper groups are starting to fight back. A major problem is that the big groups have not been able to consolidate, which would provide major cost savings, as it would create regional monopolies. Mergers could only be allowed if there was a change in primary legislation.

Roger Parry, the former Johnston Press chairman, leads the Local Media Alliance, which counts Guardian Media Group and Trinity Mirror among its members. He has submitted a 100 plus page document to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) arguing that the definition of the local media market should be changed. He believes that major search engines, including Google, and websites that carry information that would have previously been found in classified advertisements, such as property portals, should be included in the definition of a local media market. A Johnston Press spokesman, for example, says it is 'absurd' that Auto Trader is not considered a local newspaper rival as it takes away motoring adverts from regional press.

GET CARTER

The OFT will pass its findings to the Digital Britain communications review, led by Lord Carter. He will decide the definition of what constitutes a local media market. If he believes that there are more competitors in the market than previously considered, it will allow consolidation by the major local newspaper groups without sparking a need to introduce new legislation.

'There seems to be a lot of political support for this,' says Parry. 'There is also the option for British newspapers to go purely online, as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has in the US.'

A spokesman for Trinity Mirror, the country's biggest regional publisher that closed 27 titles last year, says the government must show that support quickly. 'There are two easy things for the government to do to show its support for the local and regional newspaper industry,' he says. 'The first is to indicate that they will intervene and allow consolidation of regional newspapers on public interest grounds. The second is to return to using local newspapers for public notices and public sector job advertising.'

Until any of these changes are made, titles will continue to fail, leaving communicators to value them less and less. A leading media communicator says that publishers have made things worse for themselves by dismissing the problems in their industry, arguing they were cyclical, as though certain revenue streams would return once the sector returned to buoyancy.

The source adds: 'The recession has compounded and exacerbated the problems that regional media face. It is now realised that certain bits of advertising, for example, are lost to the industry forever.'

As Chris Wade, director of communications at Guardian Media Group, puts it: 'Publishers are having to take action now simply to remain in business, and to carry on producing journalism. This means reducing costs substantially and, in companies where the biggest cost is salaries, it's impossible to do this without employing fewer people.

'This is absolutely the last thing publishers want to do, especially those with a proud journalistic heritage, but for many it's a matter of survival.' 

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