A city council boss has slammed what he called “futile” spending on advertising road closures and other public notices in local newspapers.
Ged Fitzgerald, chief executive of Liverpool City Council, said his authority was forced to spend £150,000 a year advertising statutory notices in the local press which would be better spent elsewhere.
Speaking at yesterday’s seminar on the future of local news organised by the BBC, Mr Fitzgerald said the annual advertising spend – worth an estimated £26m to the industry – was a “futile” waste of council tax payer’s money.
Ministers decided in 2012 to leave unchanged the system whereby councils are required to advertise traffic notices in local newspapers following a fierce lobbying campaign by the Newspaper Society.
Mr Fitzgerald’s comments met with varying responses from the invited audience at the BBC’s MediaCity complex in Salford
Trinity Mirror head of digital development Alison Gow tweeted: “Suspect regional press editors in the room will not be happy about that last speaker’s comment re public notices costs.”
But website boss Will Perrin, who runs the talkaboutlocal site, said that more people now had effective access to the internet than to a printed local newspaper.
Will tweeted that there were already a “huge range of subsidies” for local news from government including VAT exemption as well as statutory advertising.
The conference also witnessed a prophecy of doom about the industry from the entrepreneur Jasper Westaway, who recently launched a local news mobile phone app called Borde.rs.
“It’s disingenuous to suggest newspapers will survive. It’s insane, bizarre,” he told the conference, estimating that newspapers would cease to exist within 15 years.
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The answer is in Mr Fitzgerald’s own hands – would his local free newspaper take his ads?
If so he could halve his Public Notice ad bill by half for the sake of a few minutes’ time.
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I was ordered by my bosses to send a letter to my MP expressing my outrage at the chance of the public notice “subsidy” being removed, with a copy to be sent to the CEO by a certain date. I refused. When I was challenged I told them that as a council tax payer, I agreed with the councils. It’s a waste of money. No one reads a column of 7pt legal waffle about a new pelican crossing. Two lines and a website reference is all that is needed. Clinging on to the golden goose is the last desperate act of the profiteers and flies in the face of logic. I got a corporate stare and half smile from my boss which said: “Actually I agree with you but that’s not the point.”
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Let’s not sweeten this bitter pill. Public notices in newspapers are virtually pointless.
Once upon a time there was no alternative for local authorities other than newspaper adverts.
But also once upon time there was nowhere else to inform some friends and associates about family occasions. BMDs were just as well-read as the main news pages until social media became a cheaper alternative (it wasn’t that long ago that we were charging nearly seventy quid for a death notice!).
When I had my children it cost a small fortune to take out classified ads – even in the paper I was working for. My husband recently celebrated his 50th birthday. How did we inform the world of this joyous occasion? Facebook! In colour and with pictures.
Public notices in newspapers are read by nobody. The councils are obliged to publish them in the local papers and it is worth a fortune in advertising revenues.
Surely a more effective – and less costly – alternative is for the council to publish them on their own websites and employ better use of alerts etc?
It’s time the newspaper industry let go of this one. It doesn’t have a case.
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Disagree that people don’t read them, as they do.
But also disagree that council’s should pay newspaper groups, which cut back on local papers, staffing and quality, so that they can give taxpayer money to their shareholders.
How are the residents of Hammersmith feeling right now after Trinity campaigned against the council’s local rag only to later shut its own paper?
I don’t know but the company’s share price is looking pretty strong at the moment.
That’s £26m of public money going to dividends and debt repayment of these global conglomerates that continue to make cut backs in the areas that hand over all that dosh.
How many teachers would that pay for, or nurses, or potholes repaired?
The major newsgroups continue to make hundreds of millions in profits every year.
They cut back on their local papers
Councils cut back on services
This is nothing more than a terrible PFI deal.
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‘Former reporter’ is right. If Public Notices are needed they should appear in free papers. Not only do free papers generally reach more people, it seems immoral that people have to spend money in order to read a public notice. That’s hardly ‘public’, is it?
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