Cover prices across most Johnston Press titles will rise between 5p and 25p this year as part of the relaunch of its paid-for titles.
The company announced last week that five of its daily titles would be switching to weekly publication on 28 May with ten other existing weeklies also getting a fresh look.
In a presentation to investors today, chief executive Ashley Highfield set out the timetable for the relaunch of the remaining titles over the rest of this year.
He revealed that 53 titles will be relaunched in July 2012, a further 37 in September and 60 in November.
Ashley has already made clear there will be no further frequency changes from daily to weekly as part of this year’s phase of relaunches.
However in his presentation today, he said there would be “few” daily titles remaining by 2020.
He also said the relaunch would include format changes for most of the group’s remaining broadsheet titles.
The one exception is likely to be the Yorkshire Post, which has already undergone a relaunch in broadsheet format and will not be changing to compact.
The presentation also set out a vision of what the business is likely to look like in 2020 with 75pc of its readership coming via digital platforms as opposed to 10pc today.
Print readership by contrast is expected to fall from 90pc of the audience to 25pc.
Similarly Ashley expects user generated content to make up around half of all its content by 2020, whereas 90pc of its content is currently created by journalists.
However he said he still expects there to be “journalists on the ground on every town,” citing this as the company’s unique selling point.
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If this guy puts up the cover price of local papers by up to 25p, the number of print readers will certainly drop! What makes him think the (ageing) loyal readers of local weeklies will suddenly go online? If so, how will that generate income? What a fool………
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RH – The number of print readers is dropping anyway, and has been for decades. Young people – the new audience that JP need to capture – want there news in a real time, digital format.
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…I obviously meant ‘their’.
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“Similarly Ashley expects user generated content to make up around half of all its content by 2020, whereas 90pc of its content is currently created by journalists.”
Ouch
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Say what you like about JP, at least they are actually trying to do something to counter the industry crisis. Too many lame duck papers around the country waiting to be shot down sadly.
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So, we make all the papers look the same, relaunch them whether they need it or not, make them a lot more expensive, publish everything “digital first” for free and sack a load more of us in favour of “UGC”. I wonder what that will do for circulation and then for our adveristers ?
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So will advertisers be rushing to spend money on pages featuring crappy amateur blogs full of opinionated, unchecked facts written by self important nobodies?
Yes, I can see that one being a real success!
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Does anyone know how many people have lost their jobs on each of the five papers that have been told to move from daily ro weekly?
I ask because AH has pledged to turn most dailies into weeklies within just a few years – meaning I’m facing a pretty bleak future.
Is it also true that it has mainly been features and photographers who have lost their posts so far?
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Quick maths lesson.
If 10,000 people buy a paper for 50p, that’s £5,000.
If 9,500 people buy a paper for 55p, that’s £5,225.
If 8,000 people buy a paper for 75p, that’s £6,000.
Of course, the pitfalls of such short termism wont be seen by the bean counters.
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some papers have already had up to two prices. putting them up again in a double dip recession with a weekly readership profile aged 50-80 already hit by low interest rates on any savings spells certain doom for sales.
The idea that there is a new generation of currently young people coming through to read weekly news online is fanciful. They find local news too dull (however worthy) and would rather send stupid moronic messages to each other on facebook and twitter and may never grow up.
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In my experience most young people don’t care about local news and certainly wouldn’t pay for it in any format. So the question still remains – where will the income come from if it all goes 90 per cent digital? Adverts? Yea, right….
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