Johnston Press chief executive Ashley Highfield has warned politicians not to forget the role of the local media ahead of the upcoming General Election.
Appearing on the BBC’s Daily Politics show, Ashley said politicians who “underestimate” the power of the local media in an election year could face “disastrous consequences”.
He also told host Jo Coburn that people needed to “wake up to the realities of the shift to this digital world” when taken to task on the number of journalists’ posts cut by the company.
During a ‘soap box’ segment for the show, filmed at JP’s offices, Ashley told viewers that around “one in three” British people were reached by one of the company’s titles.
Quizzed by Jo on whether this was actually the case, he responded: “The audiences are there. I think it’s the fact that maybe national politicians, government, maybe don’t put as much emphasis on to reaching the audience through local media.”
During his appearance, he also called for the BBC and regional press to have a more “symbiotic” relationship and claimed the industry could help the corporation reach a “far greater audience”.
Ashley was joined on the programme by Broxbourne MP Charles Walker, who professed his love for his local paper the Hertfordshire Mercury.
The full show can be viewed here.
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Wish Andrew Neil had conducted this interview: the usually brilliant Jo Coburn let Mr Highfield evade the question on journalism posts lost. It could also have been mentioned that substantial other losses were due to taking jobs out of the country. To say that the audience is there is meaningless: Morrisons or Tesco, for example, could say that the shoppers are there, but they are shopping elsewhere.
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Can anyone take this idiot seriously? He produces statistics out of thin air without any basis in fact.
For instance – “One in three of the population are reached by a JP product.” Cobblers!
Leeds has a population of over one million. The YEP and YP have a combined circulation of around 45,000. Even at a generous three readers per copy that’s far short of one-in-three.
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I’ve found a new job for Ashley!
They could make him Symbiotic Co-ordinator to bring the BBC and regional press closer together before the JP ship sinks without trace.
Salary? Well, if they pay Rona Fairhead a reported £130,000 to £150,000 a year to chair the BBC Trust part-time, for Ashley you’d be looking at £400,000 per annum minimum in line with similar “Co-ordinator” posts . After all, Co-ordinator would mean a 37.5 hour week.
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Why would politicians fear newspapers that, thanks to Highfield, reach so few people? Deluded comes to mind.
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It’s not the job of the BBC to prop up poor local newspapers with licence payer money
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‘outofit’, try these numbers for size…
– You say 45,000 print sales a day
– At 3 readers per copy that’s 135,000 people
– Some people read these titles every day but some read less often (Saturday sales of the YP are way higher than Mon-Fri) so let’s conservatively estimate a total print audience of 200,000 different readers per week
– Now factor in digital; websites, apps, social media. That’s comfortably a six-figure number per week. Could it be as many as 200,000? I think that’s feasible; the YEP has over 70,000 Twitter followers alone
– Allow for duplication between print and digital. 50,000 sound okay?
– Do the maths and that’s a net weekly audience of 350,000 across those two titles. Throw in JP’s other products and the figure increases
It’s sadly pathetic that ‘outofit’ thinks that JP’s product portfolio starts and ends with printed newspapers.
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I don’t understand why AH thinks fewer journalists are needed to write content for digital? Readers turn away from poor quality content in newsprint. Doesn’t the same principle exist online or do we think any old duplicated rubbish will get the hits?
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In response to ill-informed I would say: “lies, damned lies and statistics”.
Your figures are every bit as bogus as Highfield’s.
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AH sees a future newspaper office working like a future supermarket, no staff around and it’s all self-service checkouts. The product won’t sell, it will be the same repeated rubbish readers have already seen on social media or in rival papers. Come on Mr Highfield, what if the BBC or ITV took that view, and TV looked nothing more than 24/7 episodes of You’ve Been Framed, filmed by amateurs willing to work for free. We are living in the worst social and municipal conditions in living memory; take the average city for example, 20 years ago the newspaper had dozens and dozens staff, covering everything that moved and breathed. Now it has half a dozen, and covering 10% of what it used to. Readers know the difference.
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In view of Highfield’s comments on JP job losses, politicians have nothing to fear from his crummy papers. Unless their low sales mean the MPs unquestioned and unedited press releases do not reach voters.
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Memo to accountants. If the general public send in any old rubbish, it could lead to oodles of libel actions. That would cost you money.
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