Johnston Press Share Discussion Threads

[netcurtains] 03/2/2017 19:13

Really ANNOYED....

Evening Standard did a 3 line article-let on Johnston 4th quarter recovery...

then they STOLE my idea of doing a "HEROIC" Owen Jones article on Momentum - TWO FULL PAGE SPREAD WITH PICTURES...

Entitled: "Why I would kiss a tory and why I did not vote for Jeremy Corbyn"..

Dont let the b-stards take all the best ideas...

Look my relatives get the Glasgow Herald every weekend, they would rather die then
get the Scotsman - buying the Scotsman is a bit like Supporting Rangers - about 20%
of the Scottish population at best, the other 80% are "Anything but Rangers"
..... If becoming SNP is too much for the wee dears, go Momentum!

Get the NEW READERS..... The Yorkshire Post - loads of Universities in that catchment area - become PRO-MOMENTUM and get that student readership....

BACK MOMENTUM AND GET ONE MILLION TWITTER HITS!!!!!!!!

its great owning a paper , just got to get the senile journalists doing what i say, that is the hard part.

[brando69] 03/2/2017 14:42

errr, no it wouldn't, not in a country where the SNP enjoyed a landslide

[this_is_me] 03/2/2017 14:27

Making the Scotsman more pro British would be a better idea.

[netcurtains] 03/2/2017 14:13

This must have been Lord C

13:28:57 16.46 120,000 19,752.00

Ouch!

[netcurtains] 03/2/2017 14:00

give 50 shares to readers that have annual subscriptions

[stdyeddy] 03/2/2017 12:51

dazz, brando, mrsx, a lot of those buys look like one buyer to me. Your thoughts? I'm getting a feeling that someone thinks they know something.

[brando69] 03/2/2017 12:47

Changing The Scotsman to pro independence would be an interesting gambit.

only pro Yes paper in Scotland was the Sunday Herald in lead up to referendum.

Scotsman is so crusty and conservative it would lose a bunch of blue rinse Edinburgh and Perthshire readers, but if it aspires to be a properly national paper and not just a parochial Auld Reekie rag, pretending to be a broadsheet, then it would be an interesting gambit.
Lots of people would buy a pro independence paper.

[stdyeddy] 03/2/2017 12:46

Redesigns are quite a big deal - they cost money. The visual style of the paper is part of its brand. However, having said that, I wish the i would put decent pictures on the front page.

[netcurtains] 03/2/2017 12:39

I was a shopkeeper for a few years...Easiest way to get new customers simply change the window display.
News paper: Easiest way to get new customers - simply change the FRONT PAGE LAYOUT at REGULAR intervals - COSTS YOU NOTHING!!!

(I'd take it further and annually make a BIG THING about which political party you are going to support for the year... Make it a pot-boiler annual story with a big build up)..

Hve to think of ways of boosting circulation without spending money - LAYOUT change is FREE. Politics change is FREE .. Its a no-brainer.

[stdyeddy] 03/2/2017 12:37

Few sellers for now. But buyers this determined are getting in on this bad news day for what reason?

[brando69] 03/2/2017 12:32

it's being moved up on what is relatively still little volume. Suggests to me that not a huge amount of surplus stock is sloshing around

[stdyeddy] 03/2/2017 12:31

Makes sense. Maybe there's a half-way house.

[brando69] 03/2/2017 12:29

if you consider that even the Observer/Guardian now cut costs by doubling up on staff you are very unlikely to find Johnston press financing two separate teams for daily and sunday papers. Just won't happen.

[stdyeddy] 03/2/2017 12:25

Has AH called everyone to a meeting so he can discuss his future plans?

[stdyeddy] 03/2/2017 12:25

Any news on this move yet?

[stdyeddy] 03/2/2017 12:24

That's a concern brando I know. One of the risks. Am sure if AH has anything to do with it, it'd be the same as the weekday team, but we all know a Sunday paper has to deliver something different; more analysis and expert opinion, and that brings a bigger cost obviously. As LC has observed, it needs experienced newspaper people to do it. Quality is one of the big issues with jpr and a key reason why their digital performance is so poor. So if it were to happen, it'd have to be done by a team with a great track record and even that's no guarantee in this transforming market. I'd like to see them try, but not until there's a new management team in place.

[brando69] 03/2/2017 12:23

hello... we're off

[brando69] 03/2/2017 12:16

true that it's v hard to get a decent sunday paper now. Observer is the nearest to that description, but it's too expensive. Sunday Times is just full of padding. Indy on Sunday is lightweight.

[stdyeddy] 03/2/2017 12:15

LC, they gave it a good go didn't they? 18 months? Do you know how much it cost them?

[brando69] 03/2/2017 12:14

I used to do most of my freelance work in Scotland for Scotland on Sunday. That was in the days when SoS and its daily counterpart The Scotsman had entirely different journalistic teams. These days, in typical fashion, they are all being asked to do more for less, and journos double up on both papers. I assume they would apply the same model for an i on Sunday if that came into being. It makes for a cheaper product - but that applies to the quality as well as the cost of production.

[stdyeddy] 03/2/2017 12:10

No parade lord crybaby but very happy to hear your view on it. I know it's risky. I'd hate to see jpr throw a lot of cash into it and have it fail. And they've got a history of mis-steps, so yep, got to acknowledge the potential for a loss. But... WMN managed 25,000 on Sunday for a while and that was just the west country where very few people can read.

It's not hard to see the i achieving ten times that nationally and if they could get it right, it would be a fabulous asset. I know this is anecdotal - and jpr would, I hope, do some decent large-scale research first - but the only reason I don't buy a Sunday paper very often is because I'm not interested in the supplements - they're all padded with lightweight rubbish. But I buy the i during the week frequently, and if I can't get the i, I'll buy something else. If I could get a short decent Sunday paper and if it were less than a £1 and had a few good writers, I'd be a big fan. And I'm so ordinary that if I want something like that, hundreds of thousands of other people are likely to want the same thing too.

[lord c.] 03/2/2017 11:39

Sorry to rain on your parade (again) .
The Western Morning News was the last to launch a Sunday edition June 2014. It was a total disaster and was pulled after 18 months having lost a large fortune. Editor's quote = 'not sufficient demand'.
Rumour had it selling 4k at the painful end.

[stdyeddy] 03/2/2017 11:27

Well said dazz - there are several current and ex jpr staffers and other people in the industry looking in here. It'd be great to get their insight and facts on what's going on with our favourite news publisher.

Btw dazz, we have to credit the i on Sunday idea to AH but I reckon when he thinks about the i on Sunday now, he's thinking about his own recreational activities - that particular project will have to be taken up by the incoming management.

Steady buying today - something is brewing. Maybe.

[stdyeddy] 03/2/2017 10:52

I love these quotes from AH in City AM's article:

hxxp://www.cityam.com/258374/newspaper-group-johnston-press-hit-sterling-fall-but-brexit

Asked what would be good news for Johnston Press in 2017, in addition to a sterling recovery, Highfield said: “I’m hoping that the news agenda continues to be as interesting as it is at the moment. Certainly, Brexit and Trump sell papers. And I can’t see that going away soon.”

He added: “We need to focus on what we do, which is create great content around news. In terms of that, I think 2017’s going to be an interesting and positive year.”



I think I hear the sound of a man with his eyes fixed clearly on the exit door if his imaginative hopes for 2017 are to sell more newspapers and '..focus on what we do...' given the debt, constant revenue loss, and myriad other issues burdening the business.