A Midlands-based newspaper publisher has gone into administration, reports the Birmingham Post.

Redditch firm Observer Standard Newspapers, which publishes 20 weekly newspapers, five magazines and 30 websites, is believed to be looking for a buyer.

The Post reports that staff have been told the company is in administration but they have been given no further details and told to carry on as normal while the search for a buyer continues. The company employs around 150 staff at ten sites in the Midlands.

Last November the company cut eight editorial posts following a reduction in advertising revenue.

Observer Standard Newspapers was formed by West Midlands businesses man Chris Bullivant in 1989 and says it is ranked as the UK’s 14th largest newspaper publisher.

It claims to distribute over 500,000 full colour copies of its papers to 850,000 readers across the West Midlands, Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Gloucestershire.

No-one was available for comment at Observer Standard Newspapers.

Comments

Diesel74 (10/03/2009 10:49:43)
Twenty newspapers, five magazines and 30 websites? Websites? I thought they were the supposed saviour of journalism! I wonder why it’s gone into administration. Is just not “profitable”? And how many more will follow?

Interested Observer (10/03/2009 11:03:53)
I remember when they started up, two papers in Leamington and Stratford Upon Avon. The idea was good and Chris Bullivant was very hands on…Got too big IMHO and when he ceased to be involved in the day-to-day running, that’s when it all started to go downhill.
If they paid the journalists properly, they would still have a product (newspaper) that people wanted to read but sadly, cutting your cloth to the lowest common denominator and filling the publication with press releases rather than real news will always turn off readers, and consequently advertisers, only one outcome will ensue.
I feel sorry for the galley slaves (sorry journalists) who will be hit hardest by the Observer’s administration as they are the ones who will feel the full force of the administrators, as they are non-revenue earners!

The Agoniser (10/03/2009 13:02:28)
The Observer has been a very good alternative to paid for titles in the Warwickshire area. Hopefully it will continue to supply half a million homes with quality content and keep the local business scene active. It just shows how delicately balanced the newspaper industry is at the moment.

the mole (11/03/2009 09:58:14)
Ah the old ‘over-reaching themselves’ argument (Interested Observer above). Yeah, Woolworths was fine when it was one store back in the 1920s, Virgin would have survived if they’d stuck to selling Mike Oldfield on vinyl and so on. Well business is not like that and OSN have more than held their own wherever they’ve chosen to expand. Nobody saw this coming and nobody is safe from it. OSN’s rivals having been shedding staff and cutting costs under the banner of centralisation or reorganisation and there but for the grace of God… But there are still a few journalists here working away. The wages may not match those elsewhere but the company has always been fun to work for and those left would rather keep writing than head for the dole queue – although Heaven knows the world needs another hundred PR consultants.

Interested Observer (11/03/2009 13:20:12)
re: The mole. I know what I’m talking about because I too worked for them in the early days and was part of the team responsible for for launching one of their titles.
The wages never ever matched the rest of the industry. I was lucky, they needed me but once I left, my successor was on an improved contract – ie. for ON (no Standard in those days) as in the salary was much less.

the mole (11/03/2009 15:00:06)
To bleat about the wages you were paid 20 years ago and cite that as the reason for an industry-wide problem now smacks not of inside knowledge, Interested Observer, but of some truly sour grapes. Look at those who left the company and then came back; look at the number of people whose service exceeds 10 years; look at the titles around us which closed or slimmed down considerably during that time. Heaven on Earth it may not be, but it’s lasted 20 years and is still trading strongly. And above all, try reading one of these newspapers you claim to produce – this is a global problem not a measure of local superiority and this self-congratulatory bile you’re spitting will end up on your front only.