AddThis SmartLayers

Dyson bangs gong for print-first strategy

Hyperlocal newspapers are still making ‘healthy profits’ without giving away their content for free online, says former editor Steve Dyson.

In an article for InPublishing magazine, media consultant and HTFP blogger Steve analysed three small print titles which all limit the amount of content which can be viewed on their websites.

In the piece, Steve challenges the now widely-held industry view that only a digital-first strategy can succeed in the internet age.

Steve surveyed traditional broadsheet the New Milton Advertiser, 1980s start-up the Southwark News, and monthly hyperlocal newspaper filtonvoice, which circulates in the Filton area of Bristol.

The Advertiser website carries no news or adverts at all except an image of that week’s front page, the Soutwark News site restricts users to the first two paragraphs of stories, and filtonvoice is limited to stories already published.

Said Steve:  “I looked at a variety of hyperlocal print products – one old-fashioned, rural and little changed for decades, another more modern and thriving in London and the last just six-months old – and all making healthy profits.

“How? Well, while all three were very different, the common thread for all of them was being a print product that didn’t give away content for free online.

“A bit like Private Eye, hyperlocal newspapers can be successful by securing a niche market and not giving content away for nothing.”

Richard Coulter, publisher of filtonvoice, told Steve he saw no worth in devaluing his newspaper by publishing content online first.

He added:  “It’s a print model offering advertisers certain numbers through certain letterboxes in a niche market. I’m not sure digital can yet offer such good assurances. I’ve had just one advertiser request the website.”

Chris Mullany, editor of Southwark News, said:  “It’s an anomaly that web content for papers has, by and large, been free to access.”

As well as restricting content on the website, the paper also charges users 40p – the same as the cover price of the paper – to access its digital edition.

Said Chris:  “We pay our journalists to produce high quality journalism – I can’t see how we can carry on doing that if people can read it free online.

“We explained this to website readers and I think people accept it’s about preserving good journalism, rather than trying to make a fast buck.”

17 comments

You can follow all replies to this entry through the comments feed.
  • March 21, 2012 at 7:50 am
    Permalink

    It’s interesting that in the obsession over the web, in the local markets print is still the only thing making a profit.

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • March 21, 2012 at 9:16 am
    Permalink

    “In an article for InPublishing magazine” – Can someone post a link to that?

    I’ll get my coat

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • March 21, 2012 at 9:28 am
    Permalink

    The link is in the second paragraph of the story Streatham.

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • March 21, 2012 at 10:06 am
    Permalink

    As long as the content is good, then I have to think Steve is right. However, ad spend and therefore revenue is falling everywhere. In my local weekly this week, I counted two ads specific to the town in 20 plus pages of editorial. That, of course, is not taking into account classifieds, motors and property. Just doesn’t seem like enough to pay the staff to me

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • March 21, 2012 at 10:09 am
    Permalink

    This could very well be true, but in the long run they are going to damage their digital reputation because someone else will inevitably start a news site in their area and they’ll be left behind because they haven’t developed their website.

    And when the time comes when people do switch to web, it means that their brand on the web might have lost it position as the local voice.

    I’d also question whether having a website carrying only a front page is worth having, they’d may as well not bother.

    What regional newspapers groups should try and do (if they have the resources to do it) is to develop websites that distinguish themselves from the newspaper by printing different content that you can only do on the web (galleries/video etc), and writing articles differently for the web, there is no need to slavishly duplicate newspaper content.

    I’m convinced print and web can live together and both make money, but it needs an intelligent strategy to make it work.

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • March 21, 2012 at 10:42 am
    Permalink

    Some years ago I was considered a dinosaur for arguing against company policy that every cough and spit must be dumped online before printing.
    I compared giving away a paper’s crown jewels to a baker giving away all his bread, AND delivering it free. If everybody was given a free loaf, why would anyone buy one?
    And our stories were often hoovered up and recycled by other papers, news agencies, TV and radio.
    Local bosses at both Newsquest and Northcliffe (the companies I worked for) wouldn’t challenge the fashionable “web first/ print second” edict from the senior HQ people who spoke loudly and threateningly but were far removed from their newspapers, their staff and their readers.
    These people, who were also responsible for questionable (at best) subbing hubs, management rejigs, etc, made their fortunes while overseeing disastrous declines in circulation and revenue.
    Most have since disappeared into the sunset on fat pay-offs and pensions leaving the few of us lucky enough to still have jobs to pick our way through the wreckage.

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • March 21, 2012 at 11:14 am
    Permalink

    @dave I’m with you

    It’s about offering something different and not just a bland reproduction of the paper online.

    It’s not that hard but seems beyond just about all papers…

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • March 21, 2012 at 12:05 pm
    Permalink

    @jibberjabber too true, if you look at the Daily Mail as an example their website is one of the world’s biggest newspaper websites and it knows it’s audience well, whatever you think of the content.

    They have a strong website and newspaper, thats the way it should be. Promoting one at the exclusion at the other just seems counter-productive to me.

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • March 21, 2012 at 12:42 pm
    Permalink

    I don’t think you’ve got the point all of you. It’s about the realisation that if you give it all away on the web (which doesn”t make much money) you diminish the printed publication (which does).

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • March 21, 2012 at 12:50 pm
    Permalink

    Wow – great selection of comments! And all good points. Just to emphasise (and it’s worth reading my full InPublishing article to get this theme) I’m not saying ‘don’t plan online futures’. What I am saying is that three very different newspapers have grabbed/maintained a niche market and are making profits in print. One still doing so after 80 years; one still doing so after 10 years; one grassroots product now doing the same after six months. None of them were able to do this online, and actually felt online might damage their print niche. While internet-gazing can and should be taking place, it doesn’t mean folk shouldn’t continue to make good money from print in niche markets – and act to protect that from online dilution by not giving it away.

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • March 22, 2012 at 1:39 pm
    Permalink

    If all the paid-for papers were given away free too, that would solve all the problems of worrying about circulation decline.

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • March 22, 2012 at 2:18 pm
    Permalink

    Can we be clear about what we mean by hyper-local?

    The New Milton and Lymington papers cover towns with a combined population of roughly 38,000 (Wikipedia etc, and 2001 figures). Isn’t that the kind of size place we might expect to have a local, not hyper local, paper?

    Some of the newer titles around, including say some of those of Tindle in North London (eg Winchmore Hill advertiser) might, at least in their name, be considered hyperlocal.

    Other papers now called local probably are (through mergers) covering too big an area to be truly local. Others, arguably, never have been truly local eg South London Press has one single edition to cover an area at least a tenth of the London boroughs.

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • March 22, 2012 at 2:52 pm
    Permalink

    @Streatham2 this is one of the key points in the whole debate – what is hyperlocal (I won’t post another link to my blog) but it’s something that really got me thinking based on recent experiences at the SxSW event in America where Stateside hyperlocals have a very different meaning to their UK cousins.

    As someone who sits under a hyperlocal banner, it’s never a term I’ve been comfortable with and what we’re actually experiencing is a catch all term for a range of different things. By lumping them under the title we’re actually devaluing the one thing which does bind them together – uniqueness.

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • March 22, 2012 at 4:14 pm
    Permalink

    Dave, The Daily Mail website is really just a news aggregator – albeit staffed, and has little if anything to do with the newspaper. They appear to be two seperate entitites with the only connection being that the website also creams off stories from the print edition on top of the countless picture-led fluff from agencies.
    Local newspapers couldn’t run an operation like that and no matter how you dress it up, it’s not about quality journalism. The question is do you want decent journalists turning decent stories, or do you want an infinite number of monkeys re-nosing salacious tat.
    Obviously, if you want to make money it’s the second one.

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)