Morning:
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The publishers of regional and local newspapers are eager to persuade the Government that it is of utmost importance that the current competition barriers be dismantled as soon as possible.
They are seeking further consolidation, probably through mergers between some of the biggest players, greater rationalisation - meaning transfers of titles - and the chance to buy into rival media, such as TV and radio.
This makes some sense, at least in the short term. It will enable the groups to achieve yet more economies of scale, not least in reducing the number of printing plants with consequent staffing cuts. It will give them cast-iron monopolies in places where they have previously competed for both advertisers and readers. It may also lead to a renewed belief in the City that the companies' shares are worth buying again (though that may be a shade optimistic).
It would not surprise me in the least if Culture Secretary Andy Burnham and the Government bend to the publishers' will, largely because newspaper owners have been careful to couch their argument in terms of the threat to local democracy should papers fold. They seek to portray themselves as selfless champions of the public interest rather than profiteers.
That is hardly surprising. Stretching back to the inception of the commercial press in the middle of the nineteenth century, the link between profit and public service has been strong. No other business model for newspapers has worked as well.
Since at least 1855, the overwhelming majority of journalists have accepted that papers needed to be profitable in order to fund their unprofitable activities. Over the course of 150 years, however, the ownership structure of newspapers has changed a great deal. The independent publishers who founded most of Britain's leading daily and weekly provincial titles vanished long ago. Though a few of their descendants do still control family-run companies they are a tiny minority.
In the main, great chains have been built up so that the top 20 owners now publish 88.8% of the 1,269 titles published across Britain. Of those, the "big four" - Trinity Mirror, Newsquest, Johnston Press and Northcliffe - are truly dominant, between them publishing 792 titles that together sell more than 37 million copies a week. They are far from alone in suffering from the economic downturn that has led to a rapid disappearance of advertising revenue.
Nor are they alone in taking painful remedial measures, such as closing titles, reducing publication days, narrowing geographical distribution and laying off staff. But they are the highest profile representatives of a central problem for modern local newspapers - the phenomenon known as corporatised journalism. Though this has penetrated national papers too, most notably because of Trinity Mirror's ownership of the Daily Mirror, it has been most evident during the consolidation of the regional newspaper industry (and I use the term "industry" advisedly because it is itself significant, implying that journalism is a sort of manufacturing business).
It is significant that the "big four" are not managed by chief executives with printer's ink in their blood. They are people chosen for their business knowledge and experience, possibly their marketing expertise and, in one case, an inside knowledge of advertising. They are most definitely not evil people, as some of their staff - and the National Union of Journalists - often imply. They are simply people carrying out the task for which they were selected, namely the pursuit of profit in order to maximise returns for their companies' dispassionate investors.
It means, inevitably, that they regard newspapers as products and their audiences as consumers. Down the years they have applied business rationality to their decisions, seeking to increase profit margins during a lengthy period when advertising, especially lucrative classified advertising, provided unimaginable income.
Many of those decisions - again understandably - had more to do with ensuring short-term rewards for share-holders rather than considering the need for investing in the future. This is, I admit, a slight pastiche. They did upgrade print plants. They did, if somewhat belatedly, recognise the need to fund a move towards digital platforms.
But, overall, they performed just as they were obliged by the ruthless logic of an economic system that demands ever-increasing profits. To do that, they kept a close eye on "costs", ensuring that the staffing of mechanical jobs involved in newspaper production were pared to the bone. There was little fat to cut by the time, about five years or so ago, that revenue began to fall away, as the rivers of gold (aka classified ads) flowed towards internet sites the papers did not own. Yet the insistent demands of the market meant that profits must be maintained.
So who could be cut next? The answer, sadly, was journalists. I ought to say right away that not all journalists were productive. There probably was a need for greater efficiency.
But the net result of the cuts was a diminution of journalism, a gradual and inexorable move away from the kind of coverage that informed the admittedly declining audiences about what was happening in their towns and cities. I am not exaggerating. Several editors and at least one very highly-placed executive - all of whom wish to remain anonymous - have told me that the routine reporting of courts and councils have been in decline for a least a decade.
All of them also blame the nature of corporate newspaper ownership. Gone were the owners and executives who really cared about what their newspapers published.
Gone were the publishers whose interference, if not always welcome to editors, contributed greatly to the feeling among their journalists that they cared enough to make the phone call. Gone were the proprietors who were prepared to sacrifice profits today in order to enjoy a better tomorrow.
And then, of course, came the recession. The response, as one would expect, has been more editorial cuts, deeper than at any time in newspaper history. The result? Even less journalistic output of real value.
Do we really think, therefore, that more consolidation is the answer to the crisis?
