A note to Alexander Lebedev (and Tony Blair, Mikhael Gorbachev, Jacques Chirac and other lesser-known directors-to-be of the Evening Standard)

What a coup! When you remember the fuss that the Rothermere papers made about the sale of The Daily Express to Richard Desmond it is a trifle surprising that the family would sell a once-loved family heirloom to you, an ex-KGB agent about whom we in this country know very little, despite the excellent public relations campaign.

It does strongly signal that the love of newspapers has died at Associated. Running papers takes endless flair, courage, risk, originality and a passionate belief in the medium. Once the belief has gone you may as well take the money and run.

Which leaves the field to you.

Unlike many I do not believe you have bought a turkey. The Standard is a great paper. Its recognition in London is huge. London is probably the world’s greatest city. Whatever its current losses, you can make a success of it and create a profitable and valuable title again in time.

Once you have appointed Geordie Greig as editor, here are some ideas:

1. Keep it upmarket - even more upmarket than it currently is. The business columnists are brilliant but why not ask the FT to provide your afternoon news. They’d jump at it. And then you have the City wrapped up.
2. Target Time Out which has lost its point, is ridiculously expensive and dull and still makes money with its London edition. Recruit young Londoners as volunteers to help you do this.
3. Produce Standard-branded two-page hyperlocal weekly news sheets distributed door to door in London’s outer districts written by citizen correspondents filing to local websites.
4. Let users personalise everything on your main website - now relatively cheap and easy to do
5. Launch a social network for Londoners
6. Get the circulation back up to 500,000 so that you are competing for advertising with all the quality morning papers in London.
7. Do this by going free - but very carefully, so that the paper is reaching ABC1 readers and keeping up its advertising profile. There are intelligent ways of doing this…almost like a controlled circulation model.

What’s all this? A naked pitch for you to retain Shakeup Media?

Of course. But also a disinterested desire to see a title that I used to work on and love dearly, thrive and prosper and prove to all the doubters that London can easily support a quality paper of its own.

Add comment January 14th, 2009