Rupert Murdoch still has the power to surprise

Raymond Snoddy says the instinctive Murdoch has chosen the lowest point in morale at The Sun, amid loose talk of the need for a second closure because of illegality, to provide the biggest boost of confidence of all…

Rupert Murdoch was always going to launch a Sunday edition of The Sun following the closure of the News of the World – the only question was when.

The predictions made soon after the closure have all turned out to be correct – that The Sun would move to a seven-days-a week production in a move to maximise sales with the minimum additional cost.

Some cynics have even suggested that Murdoch was not too unhappy to seize the obvious corporate, reputational reasons behind the closure in the certain knowledge of business advantages further down the line.

That may be a tad too cynical – too analytical because of the huge damage done to News International… first by the phone-hackers and in the second wave of scandal, those at The Sun accused of bribing public officials.

But it’s an ill wind… the fact remains that there has been a significant restructuring that should increase profits in the longer term. As Murdoch twittered gleefully this week, the News Corp share price rose by 60 cents following the announcement.

Having a mere three titles in the marketplace instead of four may even help a little with regulators in future, even though market share will always be the primary measure of dominance.

The only surprise was the timing – that the paper has taken quite so long to appear. The capacity has been there almost from the outset and there have been rumours for months of dummies being prepared – so the only thing that was missing was Murdoch’s decision to press the go button.

The instinctive Murdoch has chosen the lowest point in morale at The Sun, amid loose talk of the need for a second closure because of illegality, to provide the biggest boost of confidence of all.
At the age of nearly 81 Rupert Murdoch still has the power to surprise.

The Sunday launch was indeed necessary for the News Corporation chairman, The Sun and for the future of the popular end of the British newspaper industry – however uncomfortable it will be for the other weekend tabloids. The fact that around 1.3 million of the NotW‘s former sales have simply dropped out of the market must also have caused concern that there wasn’t endless time to try to woo them back to the newsagent.

We must, however, out of politeness pause briefly for a moment’s reflection on the News of the World: it will now never be resurrected by Murdoch or anyone else. The Sunday edition of The Sun is the final stake through its heart and it will retain its status for all time as the only paper in the world ever to close with sales of 2.6 million.

We can now look forward to an absolute humdinger of a marketing battle with the launch of Murdoch’s multi-million advertising campaign – and well prepared retaliation from Trinity Mirror and Richard Desmond, desperate to hold on to the gains they have made since the NotW closure. A price war, one of Murdoch’s favourite weapons, can be virtually guaranteed as part of the opening salvoes.

History suggests that with the best will in the world enormous success cannot be guaranteed or even purchased with the best marketing campaign for a newspaper launch the UK has even seen.

There is often very little correlation between the sales of a strong daily title and its Sunday stablemate with or without a different title and separate staff. Over the years the circulation of the Daily Telegraph never quite fed across to the Sunday Telegraph however great the efforts that were made.

The Sunday market just behaves differently and is subject to tradition, inertia and alas in recent years falling sales overall.

When a newspaper closes, or two papers merge, you can virtually count on at least half of the circulation disappearing – whether the cause is disruption of habit, or alternative products do not pass muster for individual taste.

Readers may buy The Sun on Sunday but perhaps drop the Saturday edition, which is after all merely looking forward to the weekend of sport. The move of Fabulous magazine from Saturday to Sunday may accelerate that process.

For good or ill the Sunday edition of The Sun is not going to be a re-born News of the World. Enemies of the Screws will rejoice but that in turn may cause disappointment.

Murdoch himself is obviously aware of the potential problem. In his email to staff earlier this week he expressed confidence that he can live with the new ethical commitments his company has now signed up to “and still create great journalism”.

We will find out, probably in court, just how many great stories may have been obtained by bribes and phone-hacking and begin to see what will be missing from the mix in future.

The journalism will be less nasty, less intrusive and almost certainly within the law, but will fewer copies be sold as a result? Given the circumstances Murdoch has no alternative but to go for a more family orientated paper than the News of the World and sport will be a key battleground.

It would be great to think that the lost sales might all be recovered and done with respectable, honest, traditional popular journalism. After the fireworks have died it would not be too disastrous an outcome if The Sun on Sunday – now with the help of new football columnist Roy Keane – was selling more than two million copies a week.

Now the choice for many thrifty readers in a recession will be whether or not to stick with the Sunday Mirror or embrace “Britain’s most popular paper… 7 days a week”.

On Monday evening I will get the chance to ask Lord Bell, the PR and advertising guru who has been close to Rupert Murdoch and Margaret Thatcher, what he thinks of phone-hacking, bribes and the new soaraway Sun and much else besides. The occasion is an onstage interview with the great man in aid of NABS, the advertising industry charity.