Two regional publishers are set for a revenue boost worth a combined £50,000 after a council scrapped its in-house publication.
North Yorkshire County Council has been publishing 11 editions of the NY Times a year, which has cost taxpayers £389,000 a year.
But the council has now decided to axe the paper in favour of a six-month trial with titles owned by Newsquest and Johnston Press.
Under the scheme, the authority will pay for a set amount of space in the titles to publish information previously carried in the NY Times.
The potential annual value to Johnston Press and Newsquest is thought to be in the region of £100,000 between them.
As the initial agreement is for six months, it is estimated that the current value of the contract is around half that figure.
Northern Echo editor Peter Barron, whose title has regularly campaigned against council magazines, said: “We have done our best to highlight the problems caused by council-run magazines that use taxpayers’ money to compete unfairly with us.
“We welcome the fact that one local authority is looking at a new way of getting information out to people in the area in a partnership that helps support newspapers.”
Under the deal, the newspapers would get a guaranteed income from public notices and adverts previously placed in the council’s publication.
Councillor Carl Les, executive member for corporate services, said: “Our best option is tie up with local media and also continue to publish news and information online.”
A spokesman for the county council said it was talking to Johnston Press and Newsquest about the pilot scheme and it intended to use a selection of their titles which cover North Yorkshire.
Meanwhile, council newspapers across the country are also facing an uncertain future as local authorities seek to make budget savings.
Tower Hamlets Council could scrap its weekly East End Life publication which has previously come under fire for its high cost to tax payers.
A review has been ordered by mayor Lutfur Rahman to look at “cost-effective ways of getting news about council services into the community”, which could see the publication scrapped or its frequency reduced.
Fortnightly Lambeth Life has been axed by Lambeth Borough Council, as has East Riding Council’s monthly East Riding News and Hammersmith & Fulham Council’s H&F News, while publication of Hounslow Council’s Hounslow Matters magazine has been temporarily suspended.
As part of its budget proposals, Southwark Council is proposing to reduce the frequency of publication of its Southwark Life magazine from 10 times a year to four, which is the same limit proposed by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles to crack down on Town Hall papers.
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As committed protectors of the public purse perhaps these two papers should offer to return taxpayers’ money and instead of taking the cash report on the council. A very cushy outcome for the papers concerned, and surely a complete surprise to them. I’m sure the Newspaper Society never envisaged this when it ran its campaign. My only question is ‘What’s the difference between taxpayers subsidising private newspapers and paying for a council paper?’ As I understood it the main arguments against council papers was over wasted tax payer momey and a threat to democracy. At least that was the public line – but, i suppose a call for council’s to prop up badly managed newspapers wouldn’t have had the same impact.
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And another thing – whereas before the average N Yorks punter was paying maybe £1.50 a year for 10 publications they will now have to pay the 50 p in tax and 10x the cover price of the papers in question to make sure they get the same 10 issues – so that’ll be around £6 a year in total. Great value for the taxpayer.
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all free on line though, ex journo..
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Interesting calculations – but not truly like-for-like. Hopefully the cover price will include content over and above that previously available within the NY Times. Probably a thumbs up for the environment as well, reduced waste, trunking etc.
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True it would be cheaper to put it online – shame councils aren’t allowed to put public notices online. That would save taxpayers some serious dosh. Not in the newspapers’ interests though, so hardly likely to fight a campaign for the hard-pressed taxpayer on that one, are they. It doesn’t matter if it’s like for like. If people wanted the added value offered by the Yorkshire Post, then there would be more than 55,000 people buying it. All I’m saying is this deal does not represent value for money to taxpayers.
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