Forgive me for returning to the regional newspaper circulation statistics but they require further analysis. As I noted yesterday, we had been expecting poor figures for paid-for titles, and we certainly got them. But I didn't have time to consider the distribution of free newspapers. (With 76 pages of figures it's impossible to give more than an overview at first sight and, I'm sorry to say, these figures are not usually studied by independent commentators with anything like enough rigour). So I spent last night studying the results for the giveaway papers that are distributed in towns and cities across Britain and discovered yet another surprise. I was preparing to celebrate the fact that, unlike paid-fors, these so-called free-sheets would be on the up and up. After all, Rupert Murdoch and Lord Rothermere are about to go head-to-head in London on the assumption that the people want free papers. So what did I find?
Well, the story of the regional frees is about as depressing as the story of the paid-fors. Of the 578 free titles where year-on-year comparisons are possible, 398 of them distributed fewer copies in the first six months of 2006 than in the same period last year. Only 180 reported growth and I have to say, in total copies, it was minimal. Then I looked at the rankings for 101 newspaper groups and found that only 20 had increased their distribution. Indeed, to give you some idea of the scale of the free publishing down-turn, all 10 of the largest-distribution groups at the top of the chart recorded falls. Number one was Northcliffe, which reduced its distribution by 6.1% and in second place was Trinity-Mirror, recording a fall of 2.8%, which was the average of the decline across the sector. In other words, the idea that frees are somehow compensating for the losses of paid-for titles turns out to be anything but true. They are merely mirroring the overall decline of newsprint.
I have to say this was a shock. It certainly gives a lie to the absurd notion that print readership has risen. The findings of that Target Group Index survey are now proven to be false. It isn't easy to explain the erosion of free distribution except by pointing, once again, to the influence of the internet and to the decline of advertising volumes (and revenue). If money isn't coming in, companies are bound to save on printing and newsprint costs by reducing their output.
But let's consider the value of the "products" themselves. With just a few honourable exceptions, I have always considered free local papers to be a travesty of journalism. News-less and therefore useless to the citizen, they are full of advertorial puffs that blur the distinction between editorial and advertising to such an extent that some guileless readers are fooled while many others who see through the thinly-disguised copy have come to view them with disdain. Some of the patent nonsense masquerading as copy that's wedged between the adverts is an insult to one's intelligence. No wonder they are regarded as rags. The trouble is, of course, that they also tend to taint the paid-for titles that have spawned them, bringing into disrepute the "brand" that owners are so keen to promote.
Yes, I do have a journalistic prejudice against frees and I admit it runs deep. But I believe my opposition to them in their earliest days has been justified. They have served almost no purpose for the communities where they are dumped, posted through letterboxes like another piece of unwanted junk mail or left in piles in shops. They made money, of course, in those good old days. But where did the money go? Not on journalism, that's for sure. Nor was it spent on innovations that might have eased regional and local papers more speedily, and more effectively, into the online era. But I feel I'm singing an old tune. Let me be more positive.
I do believe that people living in towns and cities, in suburbs and villages, do want to know what's happening in their area. I do believe that the media groups that currently own the papers have realised that they can only hope to win, or retain, an audience through a multi-platform approach. They must deliver content through podcasts and vodcasts, through audio and video, through TV screens, on mobile phones and, quite possibly - and, maybe, very soon - through forms of electronic newspapers. These latest ABC figures for both paid-for and free titles are a wake-up call. Time is running out. It is time to grasp the future.
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