Five editors faced a newspaper conference yesterday to explain how they were boosting circulation and attracting new readers.

The wealth of experience and expertise in regional press publishing on the Editors’ Panel comprised Charles McGhee, of the Glasgow Evening Times, Doug Wills, of the Evening Standard, Trinity Mirror’s Mark Dickinson, most recently at the helm of the Liverpool Echo, Simon Irwin, from the Kent Messenger Group, and Keith Perch, of Northcliffe Electronic Publishing.

Charles tackled attracting readers in a crowded market, explaining how many of the nationals have their own Scottish versions, all published from Glasgow and fighting for his readers.

The solution had been to do away with the old-style ‘red top’ Evening Times, to reposition and relaunch in 2000, to focus on the strengths of local news, entertainment and sport.

The Evening Times has become a community champion, formed strategic partnerships, becoming a media partner with bodies and for events, carried out a systematic revamp of all sections and supplements, and got involved in greater collaboration and joint initiatives with the circulation and marketing department.

Charles said: “Against the odds we have managed to stabilise the fall in circulation and bring our fall in decline down to under one per cent. That’s been achieved in a city that has seen its population halve since the 1960s and which has the most crowded newspaper market in the UK.

“The paper’s demographic now reflect the demographics of the city.”

Doug Wills described how the new Standard Lite was a fully-fledged edition of the Evening Standard and complemented the main editions as part of a layering strategy.

Its content came from the main edition, but with a different emphasis, and it was produced immediately after the first edition and given away before the afternoon editions are delivered.

He said the aim was to achieve a total circulation of between 400,000 and 500,000 in London from the Standard stable, and so far, total readership of the Evening Standard was up, reaching some 417,000.

Doug added: “Has it been a successful gamble? The game has only just got under way but we’ve got a pretty good hand.”

Mark Dickinson, now of Trinity Mirror Midlands, tackled ethnicity and how to appeal to a broad ethnic population.

The ethnic population of Birmingham was currently around 30 per cent and expected to rise to 50 per cent in 20 years.

He described his area as a large, disparate marketplace, with growing cultural diversity.

Sales performance issues were difficult to isolate and it was difficult to sustain a new product that was relevant to all.

He said: “We are beginning to look at how within this market place we would like to layer our own product.

“We have also to address what the different needs of this market might be… what morning, weeklies and frees would serve it, and what niche marketing for sub-sets of newspapers readers.”

Simon Irwin operates in a tri-media environment, with KMG running newspapers, websites and local radio.

The newspapers provide feeds to the radio and the web.

Simon said: “We see all of these media as complimenting each other.

“We want to be the first port of call for people seeking information in Kent about Kent.”

Keith Perch warned about the dangers of ignoring Internet readers.

He explained that of the 1m unique users of the Northcliffe Thisis… websites, one third never looked at newspapers, a third did two or three times a week and the remaining third read the newspaper six nights a week.

These “news junkies” also read local council websites, their local BBC website, football and grassroots local sites.

This meant that they may see news picked up by, or sent to, newspapers days before it appears on the newspaper sites itself.

Keith said: “We have to ask what is ‘exclusive’.

“Newspapers must set the agenda, not follow the agenda followed by everyone else. Differentiation will be the key as time goes on.”

The editors spoke out at the Newspaper Society’s Circulation, Editorial and Promotions Conference in Birmingham yesterday.

More than 300 delegates were at this and its sister event, the Insight Research Conference 2005.

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