A regional daily has announced a cover price increase after being “particularly badly affected” by the cost of fuel.
The Press & Journal, Aberdeen, has introduced a 10p increase for all its editions.
Readers will now pay £1.10 from Monday to Friday, and £1.20 on Saturdays when it carries a colour supplement – the YL Magazine.
The move was revealed in an announcement to readers by editor-in-chief Richard Neville, pictured, yesterday.
Said Richard: “By raising the cover price we will be able to keep investing in our print and digital products, ensuring that we continue to maintain our proud history of powerful, local journalism.
“This year we plan to launch a new food and drink supplement on a Saturday and look at the design, structure and content of the whole paper to ensure we are delivering the best quality product.
“I realise the price rise will not be popular but we know that price is not the only factor for readers choosing the Press & Journal over other, often more expensive, newspaper brands: editorial quality,local content and a local voice matter greatly too.
“To this end we will continue to try to improve our standards and further invest in our journalism bringing you the best news, features, comment and analysis from our part of the world.”
The P&J is owned by DC Thomson and is printed at the company’s headquarters in Dundee.
Richard added: “The cost of the paper is expected to rise by 10-15pc in the next year and we are particularly badly affected by rises in the price of fuel.”
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What?
Fuel prices on average right now are still 10-20p less per Litre than they were in 2012-2014. They have pretty much stayed around the same level for the whole of 2017 bar a few pence dip in the summer months when you would have been saving money to make up for this period.
Unless these are still run in house, which they must be for it to be a factor, there has not been a big enough sway in the prices to invoke an increase in charging for any contract I ever had in 15 years of distribution. If it is that much of a factor and it is still run in house then stop doing that and sub contract the work at a fraction of the cost as 95%+ of the publishers already have rather than drive away the limited amount of customers still buying papers with a price increase.
Either that or it’s all just an excuse.
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First time in 50 plus years of journalism I have heard a price increase blamed on the cost of fuel. Come off it.
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It’s interesting, isn’t it? Always an increase in the cost of a printed edition.
Never a desire to start charging for the internet presence.
If that isn’t a sure sign that the bosses have lost the plot, then I don’t know what is.
“By raising the cover price we will be able to keep investing in our print and digital products, ensuring that we continue to maintain our proud history of powerful, local journalism.”
Print readers are disappearing by the bucketload, but still, give away the ‘powerful, local journalism’ for free.
And this is not confined to Aberdeen.
It’s the buyers of print, often the elderly with little access to the internet, who suffer. Editorial numbers slashed back, quality slashed back, prices hiked.
It’s not that long ago that I’d have been told to phone the bosses of a company that did that, demanding an explanation for the community, the readers and beyond – we used to call it a proud history of powerful, local journalism.
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Saddenedjourno
You’re right but I’m my experience having lost the entire paper advertising market across all platforms; motor/ property/ rop/ classified ads and recruitment they wont risk charging for online news because they know no one would pay for it.
If they did put up a paywall they’ll lose their free web traffic and have even less to offer any potential advertiser, though that’s hardly a disincentive as they’ve completely failed to monetise digital commercial revenues so there’s nothing much to lose.
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Former loyal follower
…it’s all just an excuse
Excuse for paper cover price up
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