Agencies: newspaper audience planning a thing of the past; buying just about price

“We used to have long conversations with agencies about newspaper target audiences, but my people don’t now at all,” said Adam Freeman, director, consumer media at Guardian News & Media. “Agencies either just want a discussion about cost, don’t know the audience or do know but are not telling. The differential in price is driven by size and position.”

“The Observer‘s business has been re-modelled, it’s about loyalty and frequency of purchase but buyers just moan about circulation [which has gone down as a result of the move].”

Freeman’s comments came at MediaTel Group’s Future of National Newspapers seminar on Friday, where agencies took a further battering from John Billett’s comments – although in this case as victims of the trading mechanisms. “Auditors will move to CPT from scc and agencies will suffer because of volume discount deals with clients,” he said.  “The current trading mechanism is crap. People are being paid incentives for doing a bad job.”

Dominic Carter, trading director at News International, offered a measured response when pushed by chairman, Torin Douglas – “Agencies are doing a good job for clients on what they are being measured on,” he said.

Unsurprisingly, Claudine Collins, head of Investment at Mediacom, interjected from the audience – “It is not all about CPT and agencies just buying the cheapest… This implies that agencies and clients are stupid.”