A thought provoking encounter

By Richard Addis
February 21st, 2009 at 05:18pm
Media, Newspapers

In The Snail – Tallinn’s hidden gem — a fascinating couple of hours with Priit Hobemagi, editor-in-chief of Eesti Ekspress, and Hans Luik, the founder and owner.

They run the “New Yorker” of Estonia…well, not really, but it is weekly, it aims high and it specialises in long pieces of reportage and investigation.

It is not rolling in cash but it is surviving — though some pretty aggressive commercialism being (near enough) Berliner format newsprint wrapped in several glossy pages of (mainly) advertising.

This, in a country of less than 1.5 million people where 400,000 of them are Russian speakers and therefore not in the market for an Estonian weekly, seems remarkable.

Hobemagi and Luik are entirely matter-of-fact about their success. First, they only print content that is original work and exclusive to them. Second, they only print what you cannot get from any other publisher in Estonia: high quality story telling, long-form journalism, eye-witness features and in-depth exposes.

They are dimissive about any information that is freely available anywhere - sports, news, weather etc. “Why bother competing?”. They reckon anyone of influence in Estonia has to read Eesti Ekspress every week, which attracts advertisers.

And they are reviewing their policy of putting the complete edition on the web on the day of publication in favour of delaying it by a couple of days or erecting at least a thin veil around it by asking for full registration details before giving away content for nothing.

The believe they are making something valuable and unique, selling it for a decent price and creating a clear channel for advertisers.

How delightful it was to hear the confidence they had evolved over two decades of publication in such a sensible journalistic model. And how impressive that they are able to publish the sort of journalism in a tiny country that we, in a far larger and richer country, don’t seem to be able to afford.

It slightly made me wonder: are we overstating the media revolution? Do we perhaps have too many excitable visionaries and media eggheads in London for our own good? How many hundreds of media businesses are quietly humming along in the UK, like Eesti Ekspress in Tallinn, and will do for many years to come?

Comments (0) Permalink

An Estonian publisher explains Russian journalism

By Richard Addis
February 21st, 2009 at 10:10am
Media

The reporter goes to see a businessman and says: “For five thousand dollars I will do a piece about your business”. The businessman pays up and the reporter writes a piece.

The reporter takes it to the editor who says: “For three thousand dollars I will publish this piece”. The reporter hands him the money.

The editor looks at the piece and contacts the businessman’s main competitor in the market and says: “For seven thousand dollars I can prevent this nice piece about your competitor from being published”.  The competitor pays. The article is spiked. The editor returns three thousand dollars to the reporter. The reporter returns five thousand dollars to the original businessman.

End result: the reporter has made nothing. The newspaper has made seven thousand dollars. One businessman is happy. The other has ended up no worse off than he started.

This purely illustrative example was told to me last night in The Snail, a restaurant in Tallinn, by the Estonian Richard Branson, a major media owner throughout eastern Europe.

He lived under the Soviet yolk until Estonia was liberated in 1992; Tallinn is only a day’s journey from St Petersburg and Estonia is still has a 30% Russian population. I do not think that he was joking.

Comments (1) Permalink

How to avoid selling your soul

By Richard Addis
February 12th, 2009 at 10:46pm
Media, Newspapers

Blogging - and indeed all other activity except breathing - had to stop for a while because a book deadline was pressing and chapters had to be handed in.

It is a fascinating book not in the slightest because I am involved but because it outlines the thoughts of Stephen Green, the chairman of HSBC, one of the few bankers to emerge with a reputation unspoilt by recent events.

Penguin are publishing it in June so I will not give away too much at this stage. But as I emerge from the cell where I work, blinking, back into the light, here is what I have been thinking about.

Six ways to avoid selling your soul:

1. Integrity: based on honesty and trust and a real desire to exchange value for value
2. Relationships: treat others as ends as well as means
3. Ambition: aim to contribute the most, not get the most
4. Balance: four areas; family, work, friends and the inner life
5. Leadership: treat everyone as a leader
6. Direction: What value is what I do? Why am I doing it and not someone else?

And not just one at a time. All six at once.

Meanwhile, looking around me once more, I see that everything has become worse.

Many more have lost their jobs. Print has been declared deader than ever. More titles are teetering on the edge of closure.

And yet…there are some great ideas bubbling through. More soon.

Comments (0) Permalink

Why Murdoch is the story behind the Standard

By Richard Addis
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:42am
Media, Newspapers

Lebedev is not really the story. Murdoch is.

Page eleven of the Murdoch-owned London Paper today gives us a clue to how he — and therefore his senior staff — are thinking.

In a full page victory memo from the London Paper’s editor it says, in so many words, that:

1. The London Paper has killed the Standard as a serious paper
2. Murdoch’s strategy forced Rothermere to sell
3. The Standard lost the plot
4. The Standard will henceforth be a minor, eccentric player on the London stage
5. The London Paper is projecting fat profits in the future
6. London Lite has lost its raison d’etre (to defend the Standard)

Murdoch is thrilled by the turn of events. With his son-in-law watching over the development of The Standard in the next few years it is unlikely to become too troublesome. I would not be surprised if it is sharing office space and printing facilities at Wapping in three years and three days from now (once contractual guarantees with Associated have expired).

Next move from the Australian fox? To decapitate Metro. Do not be surprised to see the London Paper produce a morning edition and bid for the valuable tube distribution rights in London when they come up later this year.

Perhaps it is a bit childish to think like this, but in macho competitive terms this story is game, set and match to Murdoch.

For Associated it looks dangerously like a tipping point — the year when they started losing. It used to be part of the DNA of Associated to win. Without that ferocity, the company starts to look rather sad, like a non-violent lion.

Comments (3) Permalink

Why does Lebedev want it?

By Richard Addis
January 21st, 2009 at 09:06am
Media, Newspapers

Protection.

You are safer in Moscow if you own something in London.

And The Standard is much cheaper than a football team.

As for what he should do now that he has acquired it - see earlier post

Comments (0) Permalink

Murdoch the chess-player

By Richard Addis
January 20th, 2009 at 12:07am
Media, Newspapers

The Lebedev affair gets more and more fascinating. (For example: another of his journalists was shot in Moscow today, though it looks like she got caught in the crossfire of a gangland hit — so this event probably says something about Moscow but nothing about Lebedev).

The Lebedev affair has had loads of coverage over the weekend. But I do not think anyone has looked at it hard enough from the Murdochian point of view.

1. Rupert Murdoch believes that only two profitable national newspaper companies will be left standing in the UK in ten years time - his own News International and Associated Newspapers. Other papers will still exist, such as The Guardian, but — as ever — they will not be profitable.
2. He is determined that his company will be the biggest and is constantly waging war, either trench war or outright war, on Associated.
3. Thus: The Times has steadily eaten into the profits of The Mail; The Sunday Times does battle with The Mail on Sunday;  The Sun and the News of the World are virtually unchallenged.
4. The two thorns in his flesh are Metro which leeches advertising revenue from The Times and London Lite which blocks any potential profitability for The London Paper.
5. The biggest single key to Metro’s success is its exclusive contract with the London Underground which is up for renewal this year. Murdoch needs either to win this off Metro or push the price up so high that Metro becomes unprofitable. His best option is to make The London Paper a 24 hour operation and attempt to put a free morning edition on the tube.
6. However for The London Paper to be truly profitable there must be no London Lite.
7. The key to London Lite’s ability to survive has been The Standard. With the Standard newsroom in full flow it was not hard to produce London Lite very cheaply.
8. So he spotted the chink in Associated’s armour. With losses at £18m a year the Standard might be prised away. With his son in law Matthew Freud helping to direct the Lebedev campaign, one assumes Murdoch would have known about the plan to buy The Standard. But it would be absolutely vital for him to stay absolutely out of the picture otherwise it would never get sold.
9. Once time has gone by and the contractual restraints that Lebedev will probably have to sign have expired, one might imagine the Lebedev/Freud Standard would move closer to the Murdoch camp, at any rate enough to stop assisting London Lite.
10. London Lite then becomes another drain on the Associated resources. It has to be closed down. If Murdoch can force Metro into making losses - another victory.
11. The Murdoch family then owns the Sun, News of the World, Times, Sunday Times and The London Paper (which by then is profitable and gives away one million copies a day - including a morning edition on the tube).
12. The Rothermere family owns the Mail, Mail on Sunday and possibly a struggling Metro (or possibly not).

Or is this all too Grand Master-ish?

Comments (0) Permalink

A vision for local news

By Richard Addis
January 16th, 2009 at 11:21pm
Media, Newspapers

Several thoughtful and influential people in the local newspaper business are thinking about the following model. It has great potential.

1. Establish a voluntary correspondent in every postcode/village that you want to serve. Give then a business card and agree to pay them a small retainer.
2. Set them up with a blog to which they must post daily, strictly only local and relevant news and views, text, audio and video (no thoughts about Middle East policy). Geotag and subject tag it all.
3. Create one single national website for local news.
4. Let it be completely personalised by the user (many of us have more than one village or locality we would like to keep up with) and as algorithmically intelligent as, say, Amazon
5. Give each voluntary correspondent a good quality A4 colour printer. Pay for the paper and ink.
6. Have small teams of editors in regional HQs who know a bit about their area
7. Produce branded, weekly, free, double sided, single sheet A4 weekly mini-newspapers (like the old FT Digest) for each postcode area
8. Distribute door to door via Royal Mail (if affordable) or volunteers if no.

In print, advertising would be both hyperlocal and national — i.e. networks of demographically targeted postcodes.

On the web, advertising would be 100% user targeted.

Anyone could do this. I do not see necessarily that it will be one of the major established players that does it first.

Comments (2) Permalink

A further note on the Evening Standard

By Richard Addis
January 15th, 2009 at 09:40pm
Media

Three talking points after a day of turmoil in British newspapers. (My answers in brackets).

1. Is this the emergence of Jonathan Rothermere as new sort of leader at DMGT? Has he decided to take the controls from his senior team and drive the clattering train himself? (yes)
2. Will a sale to Mr Lebedev ignite the ire of the British public and political classes? (no - we are used to foreigners owning papers: Thomson, Beaverbrook, Murdoch, Black and not all of them are saints)
3. Will the sale of the Standard give welcome financial breathing space to the rest of Associated? (yes)

Comments (4) Permalink

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

By Richard Addis
January 14th, 2009 at 11:18pm
Media, Newspapers

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.

Comments (0) Permalink

Looking forward

By Richard Addis
January 4th, 2009 at 11:08pm
Media

We are skiers with fresh snow, surfers with high surf, blackbirds in the rain (they know the worms will come). 2009 is a good year for people that like change. It is the year of change. Shakeup Media, as the name implies, is a change business.

Too complicated (and arguably foolish) to try now and predict what the changes in media will be like. We will write about broad outlines in the following few weeks and keep monitoring stuff continually throughout the year.

Two background points: it is very, very hard and painful being a major media company right now and if we get excited about change we also want strenuously to avoid being callous or unsympathetic about their difficulties … and the friends who are caught managing the squeeze.

Second, change is happening in every field not just media. Media talks about itself all the time so you will hear more about media change. But the real story is much bigger: China, globalisation, water but all these pale beside the exponential surge in humanity’s interconnectedness and understanding.

Some intentions here at Shakeup Media:

• better, more participatory, conversation, thinking, blogging and twittering
• starting something in media that we can be really proud of, something good
• looking for opportunities to take over an existing business where we can manage it to be … as above
• helping our clients grasp the opportunities of change, despite the pressures of recession

We continue of course with our main job, redesigning newspapers, websites, magazines (and doing it as journalists, editors, writers - as well as designers).

However, we have access to far-sighted, imaginative investors so we are interested in hearing about ideas and opportunities. Quality is the key.

Happy New Year

Comments (0) Permalink