Regional publisher Johnston Press has today announced the appointment of John Bills to the newly-created role of group managing director.
John was until recently the regional MD for the group’s South Yorkshire and North Midlands titles but has been filling the post on an interim basis since a restructure last month.
The restructure saw a streamlining of the group’s regional divisions from eight to five as well as the creation of the group MD role.
John will report directly to group CEO Ashley Highfield while the five regional MDs – Helen Oldham, Richard Parkinson, Stephen Plews, Karl Dimmock and Warren Butcher – will report to John.
Said Ashley: “John has a solid background in strategic operations and business transformation and is a strong leader who will bring inspiration, motivation and positive direction to the role.
“He will be instrumental in forging stronger relationships between our editorial and commercial teams as we continue to grow our business.”
John added: “I’m enormously excited to have the opportunity to help take our business forward at what is such an important time of industry transformation.
“Ensuring we continue to focus on areas of strategic growth whilst delivering operational excellence is my priority.”
John first joined Johnston Press in 2008 in a consulting capacity and he was appointed MD of the North Midlands and South Yorkshire publishing unit in 2010.
He began his career in advertising at Trinity Weekly Newspapers, before being named as President of Trinity Canada Inc.
Over the following 13 years John held various senior positions at Trinity, including that of director of integration during the company’s merger with Mirror Group Plc.
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Great appointment. John is an old-school publisher (in the very best sense of the phrase) but one who isn’t stuck in or hankering for the past.
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Hmm. All right for some, isn’t it John?
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Does this now mean JP has someone near the top of the heap that might actually know the industry? Will it make any difference?
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Yet another case of being “enormously excited”.
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Are all these media empires ( ie Johnston, Trinity etc) really in fierce competition or are they just a cartel like the energy companies operating in the U.K.?
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Having begun his career in advertising, Mr Bills should understand the importance of getting that right: attracting as much quality print ad revenue as possible. If a couple of respected window retailers use the local paper, for example, their competition will. Creating a positive relationship with the advertiser through good design and customer care is vital. Taking a booking for series of ads, then forgetting about them means no further bookings. Ads should be updated and refreshed with new offers, seasonal changes of colour etc. Too many seem to appear as fillers. Digital ads should run alongside, equally branded, but are not generating enough revenue yet. Whilst taking the industry forward, the basics of what generated, or at least retained, business in the past should be remembered. Hopefully this appointment (and that of Chief Creative Officer) will make a difference.
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Mr Bills could start by making the point, which seems totally lost on the JP hierarchy, that if you want the local electrician, plumber, painter/decorator to spend a few hundred quid on advertising every so often, you could return the favour by employing them for the jobs around the place, not farm it out to the lowest national bidder. Papers are seeing people travelling for 100 miles to fix the blinds when the local man, who is asked all the time to advertise, is just around the corner. Crazy business.
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Idle Rich – I agree.
Prior to JP arriving one centre’s Ad Dept. used spiral bound A4 note pads for a daily notes diary and they got them from the local office suppliers for £1.25 each.
Along comes JP with a ‘national supplier’ with a negotiated deal and the centre had to buy from them at £3.50 each.
The result- one unhappy local supplier and potential advertiser but higher costs, unbelievable.
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I agree Idle Rich and Ex-JP … but as those that lost jobs to India know, LOCAL is important to JP in word only: as a means to promote their titles to those readers unaware of the outsourcing on their local paper.
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One of my relatives recently took out a large ‘death notice’ in a JP paper, only for the name of the town where the deceased had lived to be spelled incorrectly. At least they managed to spell the dead man’s name right… but this carelessness is unforgivable when people are paying £100 or more for something that they are likely to want to keep or send to friends. Sadly, the checks that would have been made locally just aren’t there – and that goes for the news content too. The errors in my local paper are awful (‘licencing’, etc).
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His first brief should be to ensure all newsrooms are adequately staffed with reporters living in the area and bringing in stories instead of waiting for e mails and press releases. The writing quality on many weeklies needs improving, some of it is shameful. That is the way to attract readers and advertisers. It is called speculating to accumulate. Good luck anyway.
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His first brief should be to ensure all newsrooms are adequately staffed with reporters living in the area and bringing in stories instead of waiting for e mails and press releases. The writing quality on many weeklies needs improving, some of it is shameful. That is the way to attract readers and advertisers. It is called speculating to accumulate. Good luck anyway.
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