It is truly sad to see the plight of Britain's newest national newspaper, The Sportsman, which was today placed in administration - one step from the grave. It will continue publishing reports Stephen Brook but, with the greatest of respect to the people running it and working on it, what's the point? A newspaper, even one aimed at a niche, must have an audience. The truth is that The Sportsman has never found one and it's impossible to conceive of it ever finding one in future.
I visited the offices before its launch and I was genuinely impressed with the way the staff were going about their task. There were many experienced professionals involved, not least the chairman, Jeremy Deedes. I also thought they may just have cottoned on to a great idea. They were aiming to reach beyond the racing enthusiasts to the new breed of middle class punters, the spread-betting afficionados, the armchair football gamblers and that lonely breed of internet poker players. Sadly, the practice never matched the theory. The paper itself looked anything but middle class and I wouldn't be surprised to discover that the few regular readers it did attract were drawn largely from the fraternity that hangs out at betting shops.
Even that might not have mattered so much if it had managed to launch its sportsman.com website at the same time as it launched the paper. Then there would have been the possibility of building an immediate synergy between the two. Instead, there was a huge time-lag after the paper's launch before the online version appeared. And betting friends tell me it still isn't the most user-friendly betting site, despite its newness.
Then again, I just wonder whether - even if the paper had looked more like The Times than The Sun, even if it the launch of the print and online versions had been better coordinated, even if the Racing Post had not improved its game during the lead-up to The Sportsman's publication - it would have taken off.
I do think niche publications may offer the possibility for successful newspaper launches, but it's no good having a hunch, obtaining market research that - surprise, surprise - backs the hunch and then tossing the resulting product into the market place. Papers on newsprint are not fashionable. So it requires a great deal more thought than ever before to launch one. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the next one on the chopping block is First News, the weekly paper aimed at children which, like The Sportsman, was launched because someone, somewhere thought it would be a jolly wheeze and didn't stop to think of the consequences.
