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Future of Johnston Press is ‘beyond print’ says Highfield

The new chief executive of Johnston Press has revealed that the company appointed him after deciding its future lay “beyond print.”

Former Microsoft vice-chairman Ashley Highfield took over the role at the regional publishing giant in the autumn despite having had no previous newspaper experience.

Speaking to media pundit Ray Snoddy he said:  “The board had already made the decision that the future of Johnston Press lay in moving the organisation beyond print and that was explained to me in the first sentence.

“Not closing down print but moving beyond an almost entirely solus print operation,” he added.

Ashley, who is also a former head of technology at the BBC, stopped short of setting out a fully-fledged digital strategy, responding “watch this space” when asked about online paywalls.

He stressed he would be looking at what medium is most relevant, possibly even choosing different routes to the consumer at different times of the day and for different types of content.

“If we can get over that we are a disseminator of information whether that means print, online, iPads, phones and possibly even local television, that is the cultural shift that has to be made,” he said.

“The fundamental thing is understanding our audience needs and meeting those with the right content in the right place and the right medium at the right time.”

In the interview, carried in this week’s InPublishing magazine, Ashley also set out his ambitions for the next three years, vowing to confound those who claim newspapers are a “sunset industry.”

“I think within three years, I would expect all our titles, our brands to have a healthy, growing audience when looked at across print and online and to be profitable”, he said.

He said it was a mistake for observers to assume that declining profits in the regional press means there is no demand for local and regional news, but said the challenge was “making sure that content is available cost-effectively in whatever form consumers want to consume it.”

The full interview can be read here

17 comments

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  • January 26, 2012 at 3:24 pm
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    Wonder how many more years I can survive as a page designer then??

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  • January 26, 2012 at 3:42 pm
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    I suspect the future for our entire industry lays ‘beyond print’, not just for JP. It’s easy to be cynical (and fun, let’s face it) but I wish all the best to anyone trying to pin down that elusive sustainable model for online publishing. Just don’t forget to share it with the rest of us…

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  • January 26, 2012 at 4:29 pm
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    King Juan, the sad truth is you probably won’t survive as a page designer – but there’s no reason why you can’t survive if you’re willing to change, and that’s the same for all of us. Typesetters, compositors, copy boys, and others, have all asked that question over the years. Some thrived, some didn’t, get used to it.

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  • January 26, 2012 at 7:16 pm
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    Former Miscrosoft vice-chairman Ashley Highfield – – I normally call it Microshaft – thanks to their means of beta testing 99% of software on unsuspecting public!

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  • January 27, 2012 at 9:41 am
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    “If we can get over that we are a disseminator of information whether that means print, online, iPads, phones and possibly even local television, that is the cultural shift that has to be made.”

    This isn’t the problem. The problem, as any fule no, is getting people to pay a sufficient amount for the information to pay the wages of the people who disseminating it.

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  • January 27, 2012 at 9:41 am
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    Will moving ‘beyond print’ solve Johnston Press’ huge debt problem? I think that should be Mr Ashfield’s primary focus. Doesn’t JP pay 9.5% interest?

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  • January 27, 2012 at 10:00 am
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    I used to do a presentation: why isn’t there an airline called Cunard? The answer is that Cunard thought it was a steamship company, it didn’t understand its business was carrying people across the world. Of course, when you’ve invested a lot of money in a ship (or a printing press) it’s quite hard to say now we need to buy a fleet of planes.

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  • January 27, 2012 at 10:44 am
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    We should and must all give digital a go. The big BUT is why would people pay to read weekly paper stuff online when they can get a once a week hit for well under a quid in the paper.
    (Unless the paper isn’t there of course!)
    We have not heard from the beancounters how a weekly paper website could attract enough advertising and meaningful revenue to pay its way.
    Regionals might have more chance because of wider catchment area and better chance of running stronger stories.
    phil

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  • January 27, 2012 at 12:09 pm
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    ‘colouredspecsrose’, people won’t pay to read stuff online. Instead, the digital business model is based on making money from advertising. Will JP be able to make sufficient online revenues to off-set the declining print revenues? Only one way to find out…

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  • January 27, 2012 at 12:58 pm
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    “I think within three years, I would expect all our titles, our brands to have a healthy, growing audience when looked at across print and online and to be profitable”, he said.

    He was doing fine up to this point!

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  • January 27, 2012 at 2:15 pm
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    spot on ill-informed and colouredspecrose. It’s race between falling newspaper sales and hoping digital income increases leaps and bounds. (All in what is really a continued recession)
    Meanwhile directors must not forget print is propping up digital BIG TIME. Digital income is a drop in the ocean, though slowly improving.

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  • January 27, 2012 at 2:21 pm
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    Why do some people still believe they are entitled to a job for life in the print business?. I moved around the UK even in the so called good years to keep my job in the newspaper business. Some stayed on at companies where they could see the writing on the wall, others would not change jobs or even retrain. Get real, the world has changed, change with it!

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  • January 27, 2012 at 2:49 pm
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    hertshack – many of my ex-JP colleagues (and myself) have re-trained and adapted umpteen times in umpteen centres over the last decade. I personally went from sub to reporter back to sub again. When the numbers don’t stack up it will be the page editors/designers that go. There are only so many writing roles available. I suspect you will find out the hard way like we did.

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  • January 27, 2012 at 4:24 pm
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    Beyond print?

    He’s under-playing it.

    The future of Johnston Press is actually beyond help.

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  • January 30, 2012 at 10:06 am
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    furryoldbadger
    It’s NOT at all that people think they have a job for life in print. How can anyone in the real world think that, after loads of terrific print journos have been pushed out of the industry and staff levels are at their worst ever.
    It’s just that some staff can’t work out how only 500 web hits on a top story in a weekly translates to real money when an advertiser can get 20,000 hits in a paper (at least for the time being).
    Web hits will increase over time, but to what level? That is the crucial issue no-one can predict. An exciting/worrying time depending on whether your glass half full etc.

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