A regional publisher is set to close its London news website with five jobs under threat.
Archant has confirmed it will shut London24 after completing a consultation with staff affected by the decision this week.
The website is based at Archant’s office in Barking, and features content from local newspapers that the company publishes in London.
Around 80pc of content is produced originally by the London24 team, with the other 20pc being syndicated.
Titles whose content features on London24 include the Ham & High, Hackney Gazette and Brent & Kilburn Times.
Archant’s London newspapers also retain their own standalone sites alongside London24.
The site is edited by Kate Nelson, who took up the role in December 2014 after serving as its news and entertainment channel editor.
The website celebrated tipping one million unique users for the first time in July 2014.
A spokeswoman for the company said: “Archant can confirm that the decision has been made to close London24.”
“The company has completed a consultation process with the five affected members of staff this week.”
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HTFP June 25, 2015: “Chief commercial officer Craig Nayman said: ‘In just three years, London24 has grown from a concept into one of the most popular news brands for Londoners.
‘This is down to a clear plan that has been brilliantly executed by a dedicated team, working closely with the local newspaper news desks in line with our ‘One Archant’ strategy.’
“Archant claims that London24 now reaches more than 1m 18-35-year-olds in the capital.”
And now they’re closing it.
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Uh oh, haven’t we been told that digital is the way ahead? Is not TM’s mantra “Digital first”? Aren’t the young hip 18-35 crowd, flush with e-wedge, the people who are leading us all into a Golden Age amidst the verdant vales and laden orchards of Silicon Valley? Lord, before you know it, Harry Blackwood, Percy Hoskins and the rest of the heavy mob will be stomping in here telling us it was all just a dream…
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If the newspaper bosses hadn’t ‘invested’ so much in websites, the main function of which is to GIVE people the news rather than SELL it to them in a newspaper, the industry would currently be in a much healthier state. Perhaps the closure of this is the start of a new approach, where making a profit is seen as being key to sustainability? Sad for the five losing their jobs, but I am sure work could be found for them elsewhere in the Archant empire, provided those in charge recognise the need to invest in print, in order to secure its future.
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What’s Ashley & Co going to do now that digital is failing? JP papers have been neglected and asset stripped so much that it would be very hard to ressurect them. Digital isnt the answer to everything Ashley. Giving the news away dosent mak profits and local advitisers dont want their ads popping up to annoy people or micro ads on a small mobile phone screen. Its quite simple Ashley. No matter how much you want it to happen it just aint gonna. Share price going thru the floor!
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Before t’interweb all newspaper publishers turned themselves inside out chasing younger readers in order to capture National advertising revenues from brands chasing aspirational consumers. The belief was that these younger audiences were on the verge of buying cars, changing jobs, buying or renting property and buying all the stuff that goes with home/life building. This same age group, so beloved by advertisers, now lives with mum and dad into their mid-30’s, has a massive student debt instead of disposable income and, if they are lucky, a zero hours contract at a coffee shop or a “gig” career at Uber. Even if you win this audience over, I’m not sure there’s enough value to leverage from them in order to compensate for putting your print proposition in jeopardy?
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The Dead Digital Horse’s heartfelt complaint about JP seems to be reflecting a creeping turndown in the financial numbers returned by digital news operations, supposedly the pathway to a leaner but still profitable future. Nationally, even the mighty Mail Online is struggling for profit, and The Guardian’s award-winning site haemorrhages cash at an alarming rate, hence the terrible redundnacies there. So, is there still a viable future in the short to medium-term for local news operations, paper and online? I believe there may be but not as part of lumbering corporations such as Newsquest, JP, Archant, and TM. A new, pared down business model will have to be adopted and there’s no guarantee of success even then. But those working in traditional roles in traditional organisations are at the end of days. As someone else said on this site earlier in the week, the days of treading water and looking the other way are gone. The end is right here, right now, so embrace the future now.
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Gus flair is correct the traditional job rokes are coming to a rapid end abd despite trying all manner of ‘flavours of the week’ to chase £££££ Archant still don’t know which way to go next; online/print/tv/apps/phone/ et all, all have been tried all have failed, their only areas of growth have been outside print and exhibitions and events not the most encouraging news for a ‘publisher’
And anitiquarian also picks up the ironic piece by Craig nyman,who must be squirming st how it’s all turned out
Having realised their online offering isn’t attracting sufficient paying advertises and with the meaningless social media ‘likes’ and ‘followers’ Archant have been shouting not having any value whatsoever they now decide to do another u turn by bringing back rather pointless editor positions to their two ailing east Anglian evening papers, they really are a rudderless ship going round in circles not knowing where the next revenue stream will come from
And up north up north I am sure the five affected will have no intention of staying on a rapidly sinking ship
Good wishes to those people affected
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Nicely slipped in just ahead of the weekend I see
I just wonder who is ultimately responsible for this level of bad management after Craig Nyman comes out and says “…This is down to a clear plan that has been brilliantly executed by a dedicated team, working closely with the local newspaper news desks in line with our ‘One Archant’ strategy…” In 2015 then pulls the plug?
So what went wrong if it’s fallen from the heights Nyman says it was at to one of closure a year or so later?
Bad management and poor decision making but who will hold their hands up to letting it all go wrong?
I think we all know who won’t
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What’s missing is that we don’t know why it’s closing.
Why is something that was ‘brilliant’ less than a year ago now been put in the skip?
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I wonder if they will close Mustard TV next.
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As a Londoner very much interested in local news this website barely registered. Now I know that this is too late but, I’ve taken a proper look at it now to see why. Here’s what I think:
1. They made the mistake of thinking Londoners are interested in London news. They aren’t. Yes, of course we have our big city ways, but that’s the thing the city is too big. Unlike say a murder in Leeds (I’m more than willing to be corrected it’s some years since I lived there) no one is interested if it happened somewhere in the city.
2. At heart Londoners are as parochial as every else. This is a fact that the website team should have realised pretty early on. As it was the website was curated (oh how I hate that phrase) by subject matter not by area.
3. As the Lebedev’s soon discovered with their TV station London Live (I just had to check the name) no one cares about “London” as such. We don’t identify like that.
4. And even if you ignore all that they treated the whole of London like a local folksy newspaper. Looking at the entertainment section (potential for revenue) they did not have a theatre critic, in fact no theatre section at all… or cinema… or comedy…. (and it wasn’t because of reason number 7, I think they simply didn’t consider it).
5. They should have curated by geography. And that is part of their problem. On the face of it Archant have an extensive network of London newspapers… but hang on, where are they? Apart from the flagship Ham and High all the rest are dotted over in bits of London that unless you lived there you might only visit once in a lifetime… and that was when drunk and oversleeping on the Tube.
6. The big important areas, the areas that Londoners really see as London because that’s where many, many people work and go out, Westminster, the City, the rest of Camden, aren’t part of the network. They hardly have a presence in the important areas of West London – Hammersmith and Fulham, Richmond and Chelsea.
7. In fact what they did was try to take on the London Evening Standard on the ES’s own ground, fighting the ES’s battle. Now the ES is a dreadful website. And really no where near as popular as it should be. But against this offering it is a work of genius (and it most certainly isn’t that).
8. Of the many subject areas covered on the London24 website the main one – the one that unites all Londoners in peacetime – was missing. Who the hell decided not to feature property news? For this alone whoever came up with the idea should be sacked. It could – SHOULD – have been a potential lucrative source of advertising. But didn’t even feature. Instead we get…
9. MOTORING! There they are boasting about the number of 18-35 year olds who read the website and they have a motoring section. Unlike the rest of the UK we have a pretty decent transport network – 18-35 year olds are not in need of a car like they are elsewhere in the country.
10. There simply wasn’t enough news per day nor was in put up and stuck out on social media fast enough. The SEO was bad in many places (this is a quick scan).
11. They set out to produce this but clearly didn’t consider revenue streams.
Overall it was a very poor site for the Metropolis with no real defined idea of what they should be doing. It was aimed at people living on council estates, the same people that stopped reading local newspapers some years ago. It failed to appeal to aspirational Londoners, something that their print titles are also failing to do.
I’m here all week.
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So, ‘Dead digital horse’ you think paywalls are the answer?
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You missed point twelve Percy
Bad decision making
And of the five under consultation I wonder if anyone from the commercial managerial/ directors side is amongst them?
Perhaps Craig Nyman will tell us just what happened to this, quote ; “… clear plan that has been brilliantly executed …”
He was quick to gush about it at its launch yet is remarkably quiet at its death,so just why has it closed mister Nyman?
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You’re correct Percy Hoskins
Archants ridiculous One Archant policy is, I’d guess, a big part of the reason for its closure,
The site was not unique enough or relevant to Londoners,London is not a place, it’s a collective of communities all very different to one another so generic content doesn’t fit and is of no relevance or interest to an individual who is only interested in news about where they live,they will get their wider news from the main news providers, not from a site made up of content shared from other Archant news desks where they have to hunt to find news about their own area.
if you consider the basis of the OA plan is built around commonality of content and sharing across titles and platforms this just doesn’t work in practice, yes it may be a way of cutting costs and staff numbers but the point is missed that people want hyper local parish pump news they cannot get anywhere else and in greater depth than generic ‘local’web sites littered with pop ups and intrusive ads can provide.
Maybe if it was developed to fulfil a real need or specific to a closely defined area or community it would have worked but to try to compete with bigger and better ‘London’ news sites when other publishers do it bigger and better was a flawed and ill conceived plan as many said at the time
Presumably Craig Nyman will accept responsibility for this latest failure as he was, I believe, the one saying how relevant and successful this site was a year or so ago which must cast serious doubt about his judgement and decision making when five people’s jobs have been lost and goodness knows how much money has been wasted due to this closure m.
Trying to sell web advertising on Archants pages must be a nightmare,
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Hmm. Print sales of every company wrecked. Digital a financial failure. A glittering career awaits the genius who can sort this mess. That rules out our blustering bulls…g Ashers and the like.
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Archant never think things through Percy Hoskins which is one of the failings of the ridiculous One Archant dictat of using shared or rehashed generic content and a ‘one size fits all’ approach in everything they do irrespective of the end user.
The points you raise are very obvious to anyone living in London and should have been borne in mind as part of the structural plans for the site,however the decision on content would have been issued from a desk in Norwich where they think the world starts and finishes.In Norfolk they’re seen as only interested in Norwich itself which is one of the many reasons readers and advertisers from elsewhere in the county have turned their backs on them and why so many competitor publications have been allowed to flourish ,so why they think they know what Londoners want in the small parts of the city they have a presence is beyond me.
To try to execute a site in the capital where they are weak,with irrelevant content and a poor commercial offering is naive and always doomed to failure, it’s just shameful that five people will lose their jobs as a result while the ones pulling the strings and who are ultimately to blame,remain.
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Good questions here about Mr Nyman. He seemed eager to claim the lion’s share of the credit last year but his silence is deafening now. Isn’t there some old saying with the words “courage” and “convictions” in it? Come on, Mr Nyman, let’s be ‘avin yer, as a Norwich lady once famously exclaimed.
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The problem with London24 was that it didn’t really approach London news the way the Standard and BBC London, or the London Lite etc did. They approach it borough by borough, the same way as their newspapers, rather than looking at London wide news. And when your newspapers on;ly cover about a fifth of the city it’s a hopeless task. If they had covered stories from every borough that would at least have been a start but I never saw anything from west London on there ever.
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“Around 80pc of content is produced originally by the London24 team, with the other 20pc being syndicated.” Err, no. It was produced by the reporters from the newspapers who were forced to feed into it from day one.
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Pete, Leeds ex London. sorry man, think you are completely wrong. There would have been no point in going down the same model as the ES, BBC London etc…. but that is exactly what they did and that is why they failed.
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So much hot air. The ‘truth’ is that the old boys at the top of local press don’t have a clue how to make new money (or even forecast old money)
They only way to keep the fat bonuses coming in is to ‘hit’ targets with cost cutting and redundancies. The little people (those doing to work) suffer.
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All for one (Archant)…and one (Archant) for all.
I’m sure the top-heavy management in Archant will start being slashed soon to bring it in line with the rest of editorial……
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Paywalls are not the answer. Its way too late for that. That ship has sailed. The only answer is to invest in print and use the web for breaking news and to promote the print edition. Also put local jurnos into thrir own local papers. Basically turn the clock back 5 years. It wasnt broke then so why did JP et al try to fix it? Answer…greed. they saw a chance to cut printing and transport costs to the bone and prematurely announced the death of print. As the old man in Monty Python’s plague scene in Holy Grail said…’ I’m not dead yet’.
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Barkingside billy
Not as much of a nightmare as trying to flog adverts on Mustard tv
I caught 20 minutes of it at the weekend and found it compulsive viewing,I couldn’t believe how awful it was!
Jacks of all trades and no longer masters of one
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Dead digi horse
The door has shut firmly and the print horse has bolted and no another by of chasing after it will bring it back, the biggest concern is having failed to monetise web advertising where will they look to next for a sufficiently strong revenue stream to sustain the overheads and costs of running the business?
I don’t know and I don’t think they do either
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Rick and everyone else: Local news purveyed by the dinosaur corporations (Archant, Newsquest, JP & TM) is dead as a paying concern. There is simply not the revenue power to sustain overpaid CEs, greedy shareholders, and top-heavy hierarchies of non-profit making “executives”. Traditional roles (subs, news editors, reporters, photographers, etc) in traditional organisations are at the very end of their days. If there is a solution it lies in small, agile, fit-for-purpose, truly local outfits where the mindset will have to be flexible (multi-skilled) and entrepreneurial to succeed. This will not suit the majority who like to amble down the years in a conventional, rigidly defined “job”. The model won’t work everywhere but it will in places. That is the future; if you can’t see yourself in it then it’s time to leave what remains of this outmoded “industry” before it leaves you.
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Gus flair
Wholly agree that’s the way forward for print media,That’s why many top ex regional press staff both editorial and commercial are thriving and living better lives working for independent publishers who have set up against the traditional and dying bigger players and stealing share ad revenue and readers , I inow I’m one of the ex rigs de myself
And yes get out while there’s opportunities to do so (although many are going through the motions waiting for a pay out) believe me the grass really is greener
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Archant, a tangled web of lost causes and changed priorities, lip service, unclear focus, confused staff and mixed messages plus meaningless and ridiculous sound bites such as ‘to be the best media group in the uk by 2017′ as evidenced by what? Closing websites?
Publishing papers people aren’t buying? freesheets stuffed with adverts in the bin with the day?
Mustard tv?
First they allow the papers to wither on the vine by a focus on digital, then once that bubble bursts it’s back to trying to resuscitate the evening papers again,then to cap it all while this is going on one of the sales reps tells me the content chief is on the Norwich ad sales floor playing office football penalty shoot outs against the editor watched by bemused and embarrassed sales people! I kid you not
Meanwhile in east London 5 staff lose their jobs due to a poorly thought out decision heralded at the time by the chief commercial officer as a shining example of how to do it which says all we need to know about his judgement.
David Brent or Alan Partidge couldn’t have handled it better
It’s the ones who are left I feel sorry for
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Dead Digital Horse! Ah come on, in the mid to long run digital does have a future and a strong one. I happen to believe that print has another 30/40 years left in it – if, and it is a big if, the products move rapidly upmarket and appeal to a decerning middle class readership.
So to digital, the problem is not the method f delivery or even the potential earnings.. It s the clowns that are in place trying to make it work. They are currently fixated on big numbers, not quality. They are thinking national not local. There are many potential revnue streams that have not even been considered. Or, if they have, not actioned upon.
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” ..down to a clear plan that has been brilliantly executed ..”Says archahts chief commercial officer in June last year
So mr Nyman,where did it all go wrong in under a year?
and what has happened for this site to spectacularly crash and burn resulting in it being closed and jobs lost?
Oh and who would you say is ultimately responsible?
If this is his idea of ” a plan brilliantly executed” and he is the ‘chief commercial officer’ then I fear for the commercial viability of this company
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The problem with the bigger companies is greed and shareholders. Big fish like ajP, Archant etc will be devoured by small piranahs and broken up. Small is wherenit will go. Digital dont pay, big corps with big debts cant survive so small and family owned is the way to go. Despite tge premature death notice there is life left in print yet. Pit out a good productvand ppl will buy it. Admittedly papers need to up their game a bit, but thats not impossible.
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Archant are bound to have more imaginative plans coming from their Norwich HQ shortly, allegedly.
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@biter
Matt Kelly told HTFP commenters to ‘watch this space matey’ recently so we are all awaiting to hear of these exciting new developments as yet unannounced, meantime let’s face it, London24 was simply another Archant commercial venture that failed.
The clue to it being nothing other than a revenue generating opportunity was clear for all to see when the person raving about it a year ago wasn’t an editorial one, it was the “chief commercial officer” and the person brought in to head it up wasnt an experienced editorial one, it was a “business development director” an ironic title given they clearly hadn’t developed enough sales money into the business to make it viable,
As Craig Nyman was first to jump up to take centre stage in the original piece yet is noticeable by his absence and silence now,we can only assume it’s closure was down to insufficient commercial revenues as no company closes a viable and profitable part of the business which is being ‘brilliantly executed’ but we may be wrong ss there’s been no explanation as to why it’s being shut down so we have to draw our own conclusions, this then poses the questions;
Are the 5 positions being axed coming from the commercial department ?
what happened in the past 12 months to cause the fall from grace and elicit the closure?
Was its failure down to the quality of the content as opposed to the commercial viability?
What changed from it being described as “a clear plan brilliantly executed” to one resulting in its closure?
All simple genuine questions which many people are asking.
Perhaps Craig’s Nyman or Matthew Kelly can provide the answers?
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“Perhaps Craig’s Nyman or Matthew Kelly can provide the answers? – The golden quill”
Senior manager/exec are not held accountable for poor performance or non-delivery, there is NO accountability The natural decline in print has meant those in very senior positions can get away with not delivering and just blame the ‘economic climate and industry difficulties/trends whilst still filling their pensions pots.
At the same time, the troops are continually squeezed and we are left to try and keep the titanic afloat. Archant needs a REAL spring clean starting at the top.
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