2011 – Newspapers’ annus horribilis (or was it?)

Jim Marshall reviews the trials and tribulations of the press during the past year, but says it might just be that we will look back on 2012 as a year when newspapers became resurgent…

Gore Vidal said: “It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.” (This has never been more true for Chelsea, when last week they progressed in the Champions League, while their friends in Manchester didn’t… sorry, I had to get that in, columnist’s prerogative!)

On the same basis, for most of the UK media, their 2011 has been much improved by the plight of the newspapers. The year has been something of an ‘annus horribilis’ for the UK newspaper industry.

Circulations have continued to decline, obviously accelerated by the closure of the News of the World – but that has just been the tip of the iceberg. The hacking scandal needs little additional comment but newspapers are now subject to the nightmare of the Leveson inquiry.

This has given a number of celebrities free reign to vent their anger and revenge at the tabloid press. But, more significantly, the evidence of two journalists from very different parts of the industry and with very different perspectives – Nick Davies from the Guardian and Paul McMullan from the News of the World – has been devastatingly damaging.

Both have told the inquiry that there was a ‘culture’ of phone-tapping within the News of the World, but McMullan’s words were probably most damning. He said: “Andy Coulson brought that practice wholesale with him when he was appointed deputy editor.” This certainly suggests that it was common throughout the newspaper, particularly when he went on to say: “Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, they’re the scum of journalism for trying to drop me and my colleagues in it.”

So where does it go from here? Well, the inquiry will rumble on with more revelations expected. There will inevitably be a number of high profile arrests and court cases and the popular newspaper sector looks like it is potentially self-destructing. But will anybody care because, with the other media available, aren’t younger newspaper readers leaving in droves anyway?

Actually I don’t think it’s quite that negative and there are some important developments taking place in the world of newspapers, which suggest that the future isn’t quite so bleak.

Firstly, if you sit on any tube during rush hour the carriage is packed with readers of the Metro and Evening Standard, both of which (in my view at least) are really very decent and much-improved newspapers – way beyond what you would expect from a free newspaper. Additionally there is the excellent City AM, the increasingly successful (nearly free, well pretty cheap) i and successful free magazines and supplements such as Sport and Shortlist.

(Incidentally the best interview I read in 2011 was in Shortlist. It was Noel Gallagher un-censored and at his most forthcoming. His final comment, on being told that Usain Bolt is a Manchester United fan, showed him to be a man of insight, balance and compassion. He said: “Yeah, well, there’s a little bit of c**t in everyone I suppose.”)

So those much sought after younger readers are long way from dispensing with newspaper reading for the allure of content elsewhere, in spite of some predictions.

Secondly, and significantly, Mike Ironside (resplendent in a dark jacket and a striped pyjama top) announced that the NRS is going to publish combined offline and online readership data from Spring next year.

It’s odd that Mike was wearing pyjamas at the time because before his arrival the NRS could certainly be accused of being rather ‘sleepy’ – but since he’s been there he has certainly ‘woken them up’ and it has become a much more progressive operation.

More importantly, I believe this latest development will prove that there is more than a little life in newspapers yet. From what I understand, adding online readers will boost overall newspaper readership by around 20%. This will take them back to a figure consistent with the readership level in 2000, so cancelling out over 10 years of decline.

Although this will be the best news the industry has enjoyed for a long time, it will raise a number of new challenges for the sector, not least the need to start ‘monetising’ more effectively the online readers. And, even more problematical will be the challenge to get advertisers to pay significantly higher rates for online display advertising. However, the work that NRS has done will hugely help with this.

Interestingly both the Newspaper Marketing Agency and the Newspaper Society are looking for new chiefs with the departures of Maureen Duffy and Robert Ray – both of whom worked like trojans during what have probably been the most difficult few years for newspapers ever.

However, their replacements could well encounter a far more exciting prospect because the industry is certainly under-going genuinely progressive changes and it might just be that we will look back on 2012 as a year when newspapers became resurgent.

On a final and completely different note, I’d like to thank Brian Jacobs for his very generous review of my recently published book (co-written with Hamish Pringle), ‘Spending Advertising Money in the Digital Age; Navigating the Media Flow‘.

He very decently suggested that it was essential reading for the industry. I have to say that absolutely the same can be said about the book he co-authored with Simon Broadbent, ‘Spending Advertising Money‘. Although it was last published nearly 30 years ago, most of it is still relevant and applicable today and still a book which every advertising/media practitioner should have and read.

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