The end of the world for the NotW, and the agency’s view is…

Jim Marshall on how the agency world reacted to the events that unfolded at News International week. One could argue that the words ‘rabbit’ and ‘headlights’ applied – the media agency world didn’t want to see NotW damaged, let alone go…

I guess we’re still asking: ‘Where did it all start?’ (We know how it ended, which was with the paper’s closure yesterday).

It probably started when Mr Murdoch first bought the paper over 40 years ago, which was quickly followed by the acquisition of The Sun.

No, I don’t mean phone hacking, I’m talking about News Corporation revolutionising the popular UK newspaper sector, by turning their papers into primarily entertainment vehicles – The Sun was a brilliant exponent of this art, particularly under the editorship of Kelvin MacKenzie. But on Sundays the NotW was unbeatable with its diet of crime and scandal, often (and hopefully) involving royals, politicians, celebrities, footballers and of course the odd vicar or two.

While other newspapers struggled to compete successfully with it, over the years it started to find much tougher competitors emerging in the form of additional broadcast channels (now pursuing their own celebrity stories) and of course, by the early 2000’s, the ubiquitous internet.

I suspect in order to stay ahead it felt it had to ‘bend the rules’. The problem was that it wasn’t just bending the rules it was breaking the law and though it initially seemed to avoid excessive public criticism, when the full extent of their victims became apparent (i.e. not just the odd Royal and misbehaving celebrity) the backlash from the public and other media was like a tsunami of opprobrium. (Which just goes to prove that, while the law doesn’t necessarily distinguish how it should be applied dependent on the victim, the public certainly does and now has no problem expressing its views in the modern world of connected media.)

The NotW is now history, which is an extraordinary turn of events because, up until last Sunday, it was the largest English speaking circulation newspaper in the world – a demise that is both staggering overall but even more so given the speed with which it occurred.

But how did the agency world react as the events unfolded last week?

One could argue that the words ‘rabbit’ and ‘headlights’ could apply. One agency commentator, early in the week said: “This sort of situation is quite rare” – a masterpiece of non committal blandness! (Though you could argue that it’s a hugely cunning and flexible quote, because it could apply to just about any major event and whether positive or otherwise, e.g. the sinking of the Titanic, man first landing on the moon or even the creation of the universe itself.)

Another commentator, rather more insightfully, said with regard to their clients continuing to advertise in the NotW: “We’re their media agency not their moral compass” – which, at the time, I have to say I largely agreed with.

Rather irritatingly Claire Beale, the doyen of commentators and editor of Campaign, caught the mood most precisely. She said, in arguing that all advertisers should avoid advertising in the paper: “There’s a social media bandwagon hurtling, and the big brands that don’t get on board will be mashed beneath its wheels”.This is a bit of a mouthful in any language (I think the language is a combination of English and ‘frontier pioneer gibberish’) but it nailed the issue, where agencies hadn’t up until that point.

So why was the agency world somewhat slow in grasping the depth of the problem and reacting more decisively?

I think there were a number of reasons and these included the fact that we have always been conditioned to look at commercial considerations ahead of editorial content, which is undoubtedly why a Campaign editor got it more quickly than most media buyers.

However, I think the overriding reason was because the media agency world didn’t want to see it damaged, let alone go. And this was partly because of its value to advertising schedules, partly because of the damage its demise would have on the overall newspaper sector (any newspaper group rubbing its hands in glee over the prospect of increased revenue needs to appreciate that the longer term problems this will cause to all newspapers), but mainly because of relationships that the agency world has built up over a long period of time with its counterparts at the NotW, at News Corporation and with News International overall.

The organisation (NI) has been portrayed by some (media, politicians and celebrities) as some sort of Evil Empire, which of course is patently ridiculous. But for us, who deal with them every day – and even though we have our fair share of spats with them – they are very much respected partners and, dare I say it, even friends in some instances. And have been for a very long period of time. Yes, phone hacking was illegal and morally reprehensible but so is ‘dumping’ your commercial partners and friends who had absolutely nothing to do with the scandalous behaviour or a limited number of previous journalists.

Finally, what about going forward and the BSkyB deal? It has already been deemed to be competitively acceptable (a decision I agree with). So should it be held up under the ‘Fit and Proper Person’ rule?

Though it’s tempting to um and ah or do the ‘let’s wait and see’ thing (which is what the regulators will now probably do), I’m going to stick my neck out on this one. I think it should go ahead.

What has happened at the NotW (appalling though it was) needs to be viewed in the context of the overall News International organisation, both UK and worldwide. That context has been (generally) consistently progressive, positive and, in many instances, industry leading/defining.

Ok, you may not agree with News International’s politics (I often don’t) or some of its individual media channels. But, if you take a step back from the current furore for a moment, the fact is that for the greater part the media world would have been a worse place without News International. That doesn’t seem to me to be a failure of the ‘Fit and Proper’ test.