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Publisher increases cover price at six weeklies

A regional publisher has announced cover price rises of 5p for six of its weekly newspapers from this week.

Johnston Press has confirmed the pre-Christmas price hikes for five titles in Derbyshire and one title in Nottinghamshire from 9 December.

Cover prices of the Belper News and Eastwood & Kimberley Advertiser will rise to 65p, the Ilkeston Advertiser, Matlock Mercury and Ripley & Heanor News will rise to 75p and the Buxton Advertiser will rise to 80p.

It follows a series of price increases for JP’s paid-for newspapers in 2012, which accompanied the roll-out of new templated designs.

The move has been welcomed by the National Federation of Retail Newsagents (NFRN) because it will be accompanied by pro rata terms for retailers.

“Independent newsagents recognise the importance of local newspapers in their product mix,” said NFRN Yorkshire president Ian Simpson.

“By return, it is right that Sheffield Newspapers recognises this and gives those retailers who stock their publications an early Christmas present in the form of a 5p cover price increase, backed with pro rata terms.”

NFRN news operations committee chairman Alan Smith added: “This is a very welcome move so near to Christmas and we hope that other newspaper publishers will follow this lead.”

Johnston Press declined to comment on the cover price rises.

 

10 comments

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  • December 3, 2013 at 7:50 am
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    The phrase ‘turkeys voting for Christmas’ comes to mind. Do these newsagent representatives not see that price rises contribute heavily towards declining circulations?

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  • December 3, 2013 at 9:02 am
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    Bu bu bu its the price of a cup of coffee….
    Cost of print has gone down in the past six months.
    Cost of papers has gone up.

    Wonder what sort of reaction the energy companies would get if they hiked up prices when their costs were falling, oh, hang on….

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  • December 3, 2013 at 9:08 am
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    Since when has a price rise been “welcome news”. This will lead to fewer buyers, so the retailer will be no better off and may be worse off. I am sure that many readers are buying out of habit now and the increased price will make them consider if the papers, as they now are, are good value. The templates have not helped in the look of the titles and have hindered the in depth news coverage. Once a buying habit has been broken, that’s that! With JP seemingly willing to sell Irish titles at a £157.8 million loss, surely it needs to retain every reader and advertiser it can.

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  • December 3, 2013 at 9:30 am
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    They can hike the cost of our local paper as much as they like – I stopped buying it six months ago because of lack of local content!

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  • December 3, 2013 at 10:58 pm
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    @ LOL – Where do you get your information from? You are sorely misinformed if you believe the cost of print has gone down in the last 6 months.

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  • December 3, 2013 at 11:20 pm
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    In Northern Ireland Johnston Press increased the price twice in a matter of weeks in the run-up to Christmas. And, with the papers stuffed full of festive advertising, restricted pagination to lower much lower than normal. Some weeklies were carrying just 40 pages and cost £1.25. It was a catastrophic mistake, circulation slumped and has not recovered, as the ABC figures will prove come the new year!

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  • December 4, 2013 at 9:13 am
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    It’s difficult to imagine any JP title stuffed full of advertising these days.

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  • December 4, 2013 at 9:19 am
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    @InsideMan

    From TrinityMirror’s interim statement to investors

    “The decline in revenues was more than offset by costs falling by 9.2% or £28.5 million and an increase of £2.5 million
    in our share of income from associated undertakings. The cost reductions include structural cost savings, the benefit
    of reduced newsprint prices and ongoing cost mitigating actions. The increase in income from associates includes
    £2.7 million from our 20% interest in Local World which was completed in January 2013.”

    http://www.trinitymirror.com/documents/financial-reports/2013/2013hyannouncement-final.pdf

    Pg 3

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  • December 4, 2013 at 7:07 pm
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    @ LOL – Its just not the news print we have to consider. Ink, consumables, digital plates etc. Trinity will be benefiting from reduced news print prices because they will be taking more than their allocation. I will be very interested to see their next statement and see if the have still retained these reductions and met their news print allocations. Ultimately although their news print bill is less everything else is up thus making the cost higher still.

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  • December 5, 2013 at 10:13 am
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    There was a piece in the Observer this Sunday about a new book by John Kay, entitled Obliquity, marshaling evidence showing why the simple-minded pursuit of profit and material gain is precisely the wrong way to go about creating a valuable business.
    It gave examples of how a board of directors’ pursuit of gain for its own sake will often lead to disaster: “That obsession frequently destroys them or the organisations that attract them.”
    It rang a very loud bell.

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