The future of the Observer
Our columnist Raymond Snoddy on the news that GMG is considering options for the Observer.
At first sight the leaked details of Guardian Media Group’s review of the future of the Observer seems crass and inept. You don’t take fundamental decisions about any major asset in the depths of a recession – let alone a 218-year-old newspaper with the provenance of the Observer – unless you are truly desperate.
GMG is not desperate with more than £200 million in the bank and a string of far less illustrious assets which should be ahead of the Observer in the queue for the block. Apart from the obvious – losses estimated at between £10 million and £20 million a year – the Observer faces two big threats to its existence.
The first is the rather facile fun-loving digerati tendency at the Guardian which tends to over-estimate the earnings capacity of all things digital and under-estimate the longevity and sense of engagement that print brings. The other is that the paper is a potential orphan under the terms of the Scott Trust, which mandates that the purpose of the business is “to secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity”.
Even within such narrow limits it would be an act of the purest vandalism to do anything other than strive mightily to avoid closing the Observer. Turning it into a weekly magazine would be just a coward’s way of saying a long goodbye.
Luckily the odds are that the paper will survive. The GMG management are probably happy that the review of all the group’s activities has leaked and been given the lurid treatment in the media. How easy then to push ahead with further integration of the Guardian and the Observer with associated job losses while saying all the time: you see we are doing everything we can to preserve the paper.
The strategy for such a distinguished paper – usually more readable and less predictable than the Guardian itself – must be to continue to invest in distinctive editorial while cutting all unnecessary costs by all means imaginable.