I've rarely seen Andrew Neil stumped for words or wave away a questioner. But he did so during a question-and-answer session at the Society of Editors conference when asked about the apparent contradiction between the success of the newsprint Daily Mail and the fact that its owners have been very slow to engage with the internet. When he failed to offer an explanation that satisfied the questioner she pursued her point and he told her he would speak to her privately. That conversation never took place and I understand Neil later described her as "an anorak".
Well, I've known Donna Leigh for many years since she was a reporter on the London Evening Standard and she's anything but an anorak (whatever that means). She now works as a PR for the London Criminal Justice Board and I thought she was asking a very fair question that I was surprised Neil didn't tackle head on.
First, the facts. According to the latest ABC results, the Daily Mail managed to sell as many copies in October as it did in October last year, the only daily national paper (bar the FT) to avoid recording a circulation loss. More bulk sales, you might say. Well, they were up 2,000 year-on-year, but that was negligible given that its total headline sale was 2,350,730. More foreign sales, then? Again, only a difference of 1,000. More discounted sales, possibly? Not many more either.
The undeniable truth is that the Mail, as the questioning Leigh correctly said, has been defying the overall downward trend that's affected the rest of the market, and that does deserve some explanation. Neil pointed out its professionalism and its attention to editorial detail. I could have added that it has positioned itself perfectly in that bit of the market which has grown in the past 20 years, the working class who have aspired to be middle class (and largely achieved it). It also purveys the values of the middle class, a commonsensical conservatism allied to a pervasive sense that those values are under attack. Unlike the red-tops below it, it has maintained a sense of dignity. Unlike the serious papers, it has embraced populism without appearing to find it somehow distasteful. It has also - and Neil also noted this - benefited from the collapse of its middle-market competition in the shape of the Daily Express.
In other words, the Mail (and its successful Mail on Sunday stablemate) is living on the laurels of long-run demographic change and its clever identification with the people who have lived through it. That change may have reached its zenith or, just possibly, may yet have a little way to go. But the Mail's success, having inured it to the circulation problems suffered by other papers, meant that it didn't see the point of investing some much time and energy (and money) in digital platforms. Now, belatedly, it is doing so.
I may be wrong, but I don't think the delay will necessarily have a negative effect on the Mail's future. It will surely have learned from the lessons of those papers that have pioneered online journalism. But the really interesting factor is the conservatism of the current Daily Mail audience and the likelihood that fewer young people will be drawn to its values and its agenda. The drama for the Mail - as, I suspect, Leigh was hinting at - is whether its online version will attract as large and as loyal an audience as the newsprint version.
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