With all eyes on a wider ‘war of the regionals’ as Trinity Mirror absorbs Local World, it’s time for a despatch from an ongoing skirmish in Grantham, Margaret Thatcher’s old backyard.
The Grantham Target was launched by Local World at the beginning of this year, in a bid to wrestle readers and advertisers from the Grantham Journal, the Johnston Press title that has served the town since 1854.
So let’s compare a week’s clash between the two weekly titles, which neither the prospective Trinity empire nor the existing Johnston battler will want to lose.
All newspaper comparisons start with the front page, and at first glance this is clearly won by the Journal, with the better human interest story and use of picture in its Friday 23 October edition.
‘Shock as popular GP dies suddenly’ was likely to have both grabbed readers and gotten them talking, Dr Mukesh Patel having worked in the market town for more than 30 years.
There was nothing awful about the Target’s ‘George Centre back on sale’ splash on Wednesday 21 October, but the ownership of a shopping centre just doesn’t measure up against the death of a popular public figure.
The Journal’s page one victory was enhanced by clearer blurbs: ‘Win tickets to see The Carpenters Story’ and ‘Grantham is Great Awards’ were both quite definite; it also managed ‘Jury sees phone records and video’ as a second news lead, albeit with a weakish headline for a drugs gang case.
The Target’s boost panel contained some decent content, but its jumbled design and wordy appearance meant too much effort for readers wanting to know at a glance what was inside.
What soon became too cluttered included: ‘NEWS: Iconic St Wulfran’s in minster move talks’, ‘DON’T FORGET! Put your clocks back one hour this Sunday morning’, ‘NEWS: Mobile service easing the pain for cancer patients’, ‘SPORT: Horton leaves the Gingerbreads’ and ‘BIG SCREEN: Catch the latest cinema releases in our WHAT’SON section’.
A better approach, surely, would have been to concentrate on the cancer patients and football boss story, rather than hiding them within too many less important and sticky label-shaped panels.
What looked like the best three leads inside the Journal were: ‘My daughter’s suffering after HPV vaccination’ on page three, ‘Fight against fouling along canal continues’ on page 10 (although ‘continues’ should be banned from headlines as it basically means ‘move along, nothing new here’), and ‘Protest against pub closure gathers pace’ on page 11 (‘gathers pace’ also jars).
I say ‘best’ because they were among a mediocre lot, much weaker headlines including: ‘BID project secures loan of up to £27,000’ leading page five (which prompts a shrug), ‘Project launched to help integrate the area’s growing migrant workforce’ leading a spread across pages six and seven (worthy issue, dull description), and ‘SKDC puts up £10k for events’ (another shrug).
The Journal badly needed to spot the human story on inside pages rather than putting readers off with uninteresting headlines that fail to grip the imagination.
Because of this, the Target’s accurate, brief and clear inside leads came out winners: ‘Man has jaw broken after girlfriend row’ on page three, ‘Drugs were seized from organised crime gang’ on page five, ‘Cash surprise the answer to church prayers’ on page eight and ‘Roadblocks used to end car mayhem’ on page 12.
It was pleasing to see dedicated coverage of magistrates’ in both papers, although the 28 cases in the Target’s ‘In Court’ section on page 23 scored higher than the 16 cases on the Journal’s ‘Court round-up’ on page 14.
That said, the Journal had the highest total story count: more than 170 reads on 50 editorial pages in a 96-page book, versus the Target’s 115 reads on 46 editorial pages (12 pages supporting a chunky 32-page ‘Motoring’ section), also in a 96-page book.
Put simply, the Journal contained more news, sport and (just) features, but then the Target only costs 50p, whereas the Journal’s cover price is nearly double at 95p (unless you choose to subscribe, in which case it’s still more than 50pc more at 76p).
Finally, the Journal pipped the Target to the post on the back page, with its ‘CEO Horton walks out on the Gingerbreads’ feeling newsier than the Target’s ‘Stevens: we must hunt in packs against Ilkeston’ (it only carried five pars on Horton, which may have been a late-breaking story).
So who won this battle of Grantham in the penultimate week of October? My verdict is that the Journal reigns because of its well-executed front and back, despite valiant efforts on inside pages from the great-value Target.
It was a close call though, and the Target feels like it’s established itself as a good read in less than year, so the Journal needs to post some extra sentries.
For anyone looking for sales comparisons, the Target is registered with ABC but its first certificate is yet to be issued, while the Journal has been deregistered (it was selling around 15,000 when I reviewed it three years ago).
Footnote: In what to me are baffling tactics, the invading Target is printed by the Johnston Press, the publisher of the defending Journal. Rumours abound that Trinity Mirror is already shuffling press schedules …
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Gotten???
It’s a no from me.
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Yes you wrote “gotten”. Goodbye forever, Steve Dyson.
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Yes. Xex, couldn’t agree more. Why, oh, why, does anyone use gotten, the ugliest word in the language, largely discarded in this country long ago for good reason? It should never have been reintroduced from the US.
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Does Mr Dyson perhaps originate from north of the border, where I understand “gotten” is quite acceptable?
If not, he should give more thought to his choice of words.
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Yeah, let’s debate the use of the word ‘gotten’ rather than the more important issues raise in Steve’s article.
This is why subs should continue to disappear from newsrooms. They no longer add value; they nitpick!
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Personally I found the Target front page (dated and untidy as it undoubtedly is) more interesting than the Journal, which just looks like every other JP weekly templated front page.
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I like the idea of ‘giants’ battling it out (though probably not Steve’s choice of headline).
One is Jabba the Hut and the other, three weedy guys on each other’s shoulders inside a big coat shouting through a megaphone. To the victor goes the chance to spoil something.
An image of Grantham laid waste like Stalingrad also springs to mind – don’t know what it looks like these days though?
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I know it’s wrong but I have this urge to sneak up on young Oliver and slap him round the chops with a copy of Keith Waterhouse’s style book.
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Idle Rich, not so young anymore but enthusiastic about what actually sells newspapers and encourages people to read the articles we write. It isn’t arguing about the use of the word ‘gotten’ or where the apostrophe should be placed in Mother’s/Mothers’ Day.
Steve has written an article which shares his opinions and encourages others about two titles fighting for readers in the same patch.
His footnote alludes to potential horse trading between the remaining big players after Trinity Mirror’s acquisition of Local World.
I believe that the days of the Grantham Target are numbered. Too new, too small and not edited from within the patch itself, hence the lack of knowledge about such a popular local figure. I have no doubt that it will form part of Trinity Mirror’s £12m worth of ‘cost synergies’.
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I’m with Oliver on this one. It’s fiddling while Rome burns and it’s gotten out of hand
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Gotten rhymes with rotten.
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Oh, I do love words! And therefore I welcome the passion evoked by ‘gotten’. I did think about its use, and I do agree that ‘got’ is usually the preferred past participle of the verb ‘get’. But using ‘got’ with ‘grabbed’ just didn’t match as well in my mind as ‘gotten’. Also, ‘gotten’ is better for the meaning of obtaining something, whereas ‘got’ implies it’s already obtained. My phrase was the former. But at least it seems to have gotten your attentions!
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Attention – not attentions
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Re “the Target only costs 50p”
Costs only?
peter laud Kettering, Tas, once of Bimingham and Manchester.
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