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Journalists offered cash prizes in publisher’s bid to boost web traffic

Ashley-Highfield2-e1401302531277Cash prizes of up to £5,000 are being offered as part of a regional publisher’s drive to increase traffic on its websites.

Johnston Press has launched an initiative which will see the company’s journalists and regional publishing units compete to win money during the last three months of 2015.

JP is giving each unit the chance to win £5,000 for a “celebration event” for delivering the highest percentage increase in page view growth, as the company aims to achieve a target of 110m page views per month across its websites.

All editorial staff will also have the opportunity to win the chief executive’s prize of £500 for particularly strong or innovative ideas or stories which contribute towards the target.

Each unit will be measured by the percentage increase recorded for the biggest website within its region, with the overall winner being announced in early 2016.

The victorious unit will receive £2,500, second place £1,250 and third £750. All other units will receive £250 to put towards a “celebration event”.

The prizes will be doubled if the 110m target is reached across the company. The winner of the chief executive’s prize will receive £500 and the runner up £250, whlie five “spot prizes” of £200 will also be offered during the competition.

Each publication will be given its own target, with results published monthly to show how each team is performing.

In a message to staff which has been seen by HTFP, JP editorial board chairman Jeremy Clifford said: “This is the first time editorial has been able to come together around one collective target. Putting together a competition will hopefully instil a bit of fun around what is an incredibly important target.

“It has been designed to encourage collective ideas sharing not only within (publishing units) but also across the whole of editorial.”

Chief executive Ashley Highfield, pictured above left, added: “Our editorial teams are already focused on driving our digital audiences. We’ve seen a significant digital transformation this year through Newsroom of the Future as we push for an increase in total audience and drive digital revenues.

“This competition is a great way to increase traffic to our sites, while showcasing the quality journalism behind the stories coming from the heart of the communities we serve.”

33 comments

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  • October 8, 2015 at 8:33 am
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    The prizes will simply go to whoever gets the biggest story on their patch, preferably one which can be used to create some galleries. If anyone gets a major fire, they’re in with a shot!

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  • October 8, 2015 at 8:48 am
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    Page view growth – such a quality metric.

    Expect a sudden glut of picture galleries, listicles and other ‘popular’ short-form nonsense.

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  • October 8, 2015 at 8:49 am
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    As dispiriting as TM’s recent concept of linking pay reviews directly to the no of unique users and page hits achieved by each journalist’s stories.
    I suggest the Yorkshire Post run a series of stories suggesting Taylor Swift is planning to buy Leeds United, and will then replace the club’s ‘marching on together’ anthem by one of her songs which will change monthly. United’s badge will also be changed to two cute puppies and a dolphin.
    Reckon there’s enough there for five or six ‘world exclusive’ splashes, two ‘cut and paste’ backgrounders, an analysis of what dogs and creatures of the sea mean in terms of sports branding and an eight-page supplement entitled: Who is Taylor Swift?
    Am willing to split the £5k between a charity and a bank account; both of my choice.,

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  • October 8, 2015 at 9:18 am
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    This will become the new way to pay your wages…reminds me of telesales girls working on a commission only basis to sell classifieds.

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  • October 8, 2015 at 9:20 am
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    “We haven’t got a clue what we’re doing with this digital thingamajig, but one of you lot might have a good idea, so here’s some cash in case you find that golden goose and save our bacon. Oh, and don’t tell them your name Pike!”

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  • October 8, 2015 at 9:25 am
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    its that man again!
    …its Saturday night
    …,the click baits right so COME ON DOWN!

    but no incentive for quality print stories I see?
    Dear oh deary me,another distress flare being fired off the wreck of the good ship JP

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  • October 8, 2015 at 9:31 am
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    Erm, save a tiny bit of the ‘prize’ money and spend the money on new staff members instead? I know it’s an out-of-the-box idea…. oh, before i forgot, and reduce the over-inflated bonus culture of MDs/top brass?

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  • October 8, 2015 at 10:05 am
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    Looking at share price, hint of desperation maybe?
    JPs percentage ad income from web site still not revealed after all these years.
    As Ashers likes to boast of JP success we can only assume……

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  • October 8, 2015 at 10:46 am
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    @Ian Halstead – TM isn’t linking pay reviews to page views. Might I suggest before you start suggesting the YEP make up stories, you check your own facts first?

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  • October 8, 2015 at 10:48 am
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    Obviously having a list to show which units are performing best also shows which are performing worst, wonder what their prize will be. Something p45 shaped?

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  • October 8, 2015 at 10:54 am
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    So, every team gets £250 just in time for their Christmas parties.

    What are they getting towards their Christmas parties Ash?

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  • October 8, 2015 at 12:18 pm
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    It appears the well of innovative ideas on how to snare web browsers onto awful regional press digital pages has run dry.
    Almost as bad as Archant offering cinema tickets to readers for UGC
    That went down really well , not

    If this is the best they can do to squeeze half decent stories out of the remaining staff after all the good ones have gone then I fear for the future of journalism in their neck of the woods

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  • October 8, 2015 at 12:20 pm
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    Reporters at The Teesside Gazette get a Food Bank token every time they work the word “parmo” into a story. I am now owed one token.

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  • October 8, 2015 at 12:44 pm
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    I think we are getting round to a company declaring: “…. and the winner gets to keep their job.”

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  • October 8, 2015 at 12:59 pm
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    Has it really come to this ?
    Dangling a carrot in front of what’s left of the journos at JP just to get some views

    Nice little pre Christmas gift for one or two of the scribblers in lieu of a bonus and at what’s traditionally called the ‘cull in time for January’ season

    Please HTFP could you let us see the winners so we all know what top quality reportage we are up against and just how high or low to set the bar
    RIPRP

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  • October 8, 2015 at 1:03 pm
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    It smacks of desperation by a firm, many of whose freelancers (former employees) haven’t been paid for two or three months. Not much principle in JP. Digital simply isn’t working.

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  • October 8, 2015 at 2:07 pm
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    why isn’t Highfield being held to account by shareholders

    his plan is failing, his vision is flawed and the value of the company is almost nothing

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  • October 8, 2015 at 2:30 pm
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    I suppose they are hoping for lots more like this story and video from the YEP website today: “Caught on camera: Tesco guards stop shopper over 5p carrier bag.”

    Shame neither the story, nor the video, say where the woman lives, or where the shop is.

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  • October 8, 2015 at 2:41 pm
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    STOP PRESS: The Tesco carrier bag incident happened in Leyton, east London.

    So nothing whatsoever to do with Leeds, Yorkshire, the north of England etc etc.

    TOMORROW: All your z-list celebrity news from Los Angeles in your Leeds YEP.

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  • October 8, 2015 at 3:50 pm
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    What about some kind of generic guides, I mean ‘how to tie a shoelace’ stuff. You could get proper digital on it and do video embeds of each step!!

    The great thing would be its not just the locals who read it (!) but you would get the long tail traffic for such ‘how to’ guides worldwide. Guaranteed evergreen content that will bring pageviews now and forever more.

    Ah balls…. Trinity Mirror have beaten me to that idea:

    http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/watch-how-tie-shoelace-step-10033120

    (Note, as we have been told this is not clickbait or waffle, it is important engaging content that will help satisfy local resident search needs and help surface the other content on the site.)

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  • October 8, 2015 at 8:18 pm
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    Do you think the suits get cash bonus fur coming up with the most soul destroying and completely out of touch schemes they can?

    If so this must be up there with editors retweeting their own tweets
    Offering cinema tickets for UGC ( Archant)
    relocating juniors to three hour stints in a caff just so they can close the local office
    And winning investors in people awards then the next day announcing job cuts and job losses

    Meanwhile thousands more readers walk away from regional press daily titles while the suits concentrate on carrot dangling to get click bait
    Beggars belief really

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  • October 8, 2015 at 8:38 pm
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    Slate grey …absolute brilliant comment…Who do you think you are kidding Mr Highfield,it certainly seems the shareholders,but not the hundreds of ex JP employee’s who have seen their careers and profession destroyed by AH,with his unbelievable ‘make it up as you go along’ running of the business.His latest mad cap scheme smacks of desperation, you fear what is comeing in November’s statement.

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  • October 9, 2015 at 9:37 am
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    On the one hand, offering £5,000 as a prize to increase traffic on websites. On the other, killing off 11 free newspapers.
    Johnston Press. You couldn’t make it up.

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  • October 9, 2015 at 6:59 pm
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    This is surely scraping the barrel… if everyone installed an ad blocker in their browser such as AdBlock Plus and also an ad tracker such as Ghostery, then poor old Ashley will not get his next bonus :)

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  • October 10, 2015 at 1:15 pm
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    If you think your local JP weekly is bad try going in line. The digital version of my weekly is absolute crap.

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  • October 12, 2015 at 10:16 am
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    Sorry to seem dense, but I thought papers had these website thingies because that’s what the readers wanted? Anyone would think, from this story, that not enough people were looking at them, which I’m sure can’t be correct.

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  • October 12, 2015 at 9:46 pm
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    exJp, glad you raised that one. The once respected Peterborough Telegraph also ran the same carrier bag story disguised as local news.

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  • October 13, 2015 at 8:57 am
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    I have measured by life with page clicks …

    What a terrible reflection of the life of a journalist in the British regional press today.

    (With apologies to TS Eliot}

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  • October 14, 2015 at 10:35 am
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    Two things wrong with this. One if you had such a poor website only 10 people were visiting it and you managed to get that up to 20, you’d have a 100% improvement. If you had 50,000 visiting your site and got 25,000 more visits, you’d only have a 50% improvement.
    Secondly, £5000 sounds generous until you realise how big a ‘publishing unit’ may be, like, all of East Anglia, Bedfordshire and Lincolnshire.
    This is about as rewarding as the extra day holiday Ashley gave us for doing without a wage increase for several years.

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