Further to the Independent’s financial statement, and standing back from the understandable hype generated by its owner, Evgeny Lebedev, I think it does represent a significant success.
It means that, for the foreseeable future, the other liberal voice in the national quality press will be heard. The Independent adopts a coherent editorial stance that, in company with the Guardian, acts as a valuable antidote to the dominant output of the Times and Daily Telegraph.
The Indy may sell fewer than 60,000 copies a day, but its online audience has been growing apace over the past couple of years.
It is complemented by its little sister, i, which sells about 280,00 copies in print and has an online presence too. It is fair to say that its revenue helps to keep the Indy in business.
And i is cheap to produce. Fewer than 10 staff put it together in what a senior executive told me is “little more than a glorified subbing exercise.”
That means 140 staff are engaged in producing the Independent itself. Nor should we overlook the fact that, at £1.40 an issue on weekdays (and £1.80 on Saturdays) its print version remains a valued revenue source.
A year ago, the Independent appeared to be “in play”. Lebedev was candid enough to admit that he would open the doors to investors (aka buyers). Nothing came of it and, for the moment, a sale doesn’t seem to be on his mind.
That said, all owners are mercurial and the Lebedev fortunes have been dwindling, so the possibility of sale, even if remote, remains.
However, if reports about continuing reductions in losses are to be believed, then the paper’s future is assured whether Lebedev remains at the helm. Anyway, my sources tell me he continues to love the status of national newspaper ownership.
Those sources also argue that the overall state of Lebedev’s company, ESI Media, is on a better footing than in years past, despite the travails of running the loss-making local TV channel, London Live.
We won’t hear about the London Evening Standard’s trading situation in the year up to September 2014 until tomorrow, but it has been making a profit for the past two years and I’d be surprised if it didn’t achieve the hat-trick.
That said, even though I acknowledge the need to prune budgets, I am sorry that it was felt necessary to make journalists redundant at both the Indy and the Standard over the past year.
These titles are read precisely because they continue to publish quality journalism. So a further diminution in editorial staffing would be a mistake.
And yes, here comes the full disclosure, I do write a weekly column for the Standard. But that has never stayed my hand on my being critical of the company, most notably over its decision to launch London Live.
