Ashley Highfield, chief executive of Johnston Press, is a media boss who loves the media limelight. Unlike most of his rivals, he regularly offers himself up for press and broadcasting interviews.
So there was little surprise that, following his £24m acquisition of the i newspaper, he should pose in front of the presses with one of the first copies published by his company.
And he also popped up on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme for a short interview in which he was asked what difference readers would find in today’s i compared to those on the newsstands last week.
Answer: none. The only “difference” identified by Highfield is that there will be thousands more copies available because it is now being sold in Northern Ireland (having retreated from there years ago). That hardly constitutes a large expansion, but he does promise wider distribution across the UK.
Highfield’s major point is that it will be business as usual, with articles from the stable of writers who also contribute to the Independent. That was also the bold front page message, which listed their names while succinctly noting the i’s editorial ethos: “Concise. Quality. Free from party political bias.”
When asked about the “ailing” print newspaper industry, Highfield noted increased sales of the Times (correct) and the Daily Telegraph (wrong). He also suggested that i had “put on large numbers [of sales] since it launched.”
That overlooks the fact that its sale has, like other daily newsprint titles, been declining for some time. Two months ago, its daily headline sale was 269,268, which included 66,367 bulks. In February 2015, it sold 278,438 copies a day, with 62,926 bulks.
In other words, its headline sale fell by 3.3%, although it would have been worse if it had not increased the number of bulks (aka multiple sales) sold cheaply to airports and hotels. Note also that in February 2014, it sold more than 300,000. The downward trend was evident to former owner, Evgeny Lebedev, and cannot be denied - except by a chief executive spinning a line about his new paper.
Highfield, asked about the move to digital, pointed out that i will soon have a website, inews.co.uk, and argued that there was a value in having the combination of “a strong print product” with an online presence.
One big difference between the old i and the new one, is the staffing. Where once there were 17 journalists there will now be 50 operating under editor Oly Duff.
I have a hunch that it will not be 50 for long. Highfield has a history of cutting editorial staffs to the bone, as the journalists at the run-down Scotsman and the Yorkshire Post, along with Johnston Press’s other 200 titles, can testify.
So what is the advantage in taking on i? Well, it sells for 40p and, after the retail margins, therefore adds a goodly sum to the company’s coffers each day.
A national presence could help the publisher to persuade advertising agencies that there is a benefit in buying space across its entire newspaper portfolio.
It remains, however, something of a gamble. In fairness, its future looks more assured than that of The New Day, the daily printed title launched on 29 February by Trinity Mirror.
My researches suggest that its circulation has fluctuated in the past week between 30 to 50,000. If so, it surely cannot survive. The experiment, aiming a paper at women who are not regular newspaper buyers, has not worked.
