Future Forum: Two sides to a publishing future

Sep 02, 2016 at 10:05 am by Staff


Was there some clarity on the future of Australia's complex and confused newsmedia industry by the end of today's Future Forum event?

Well yes, and no: While some speakers extolled the benefits of moving to a predominantly digital publishing model, others made the case for holding on the old technology, dead trees and all. And others weren't saying.

Much of the inspiration came from the UK, with speakers including Blanche Sainsbury, who is Trinity Mirror's commercial director and accustomed to dissociating herself from the supermarket of the same name - Michael Cooke, editor of the Toronto Star, and Will Lewis, the former British journalist who is now the chief executive of News Corp's Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

Each had a different story to tell: Sainsbury of how she had helped build the UK's LocalWorld franchise from the unconsidered parts of two major publishers, before "suitors started circling" and it was sold to her present employer, Trinity Mirror for £220 million. Digital publishing - and online self-service - is part of the structural change there which will see the 75/25 split between print and digital revenues of 2010 reversed to 25/75 by 2018.

In her new role, she has already led Trinity Mirror to centralized call centres which handle jobs and want-ads (including curiously, BMDs) and will shortly take on the "Daves" among small and medium advertisers who spend less than £1,000 on advertising a year. All of which frees up resources to focus on larger advertisers and strategic sales.

Lewis' story was of the engagement driven by news brands, rather than the "hollowed out" product distributed by social media who "milk profit from the content created by others". Urging the case for quality journalism, he adds, "you can't disintermediate the truth" and, "there is a newspaper model that works, and we believe we have found it at Dow Jones," he says.

And later, "the power of print remains strong, with multimedia vital to maintain control".

His message that negotiations with social media giants should be from a position of strength had an echo in the story told by Sinead Boucher (Fairfax Media), one of two editors taking part in a New Zealand panel.

Its 16-year-old Stuff online brand - with 2.044 million uniques - had become the number one New Zealand digital brand, "just behind" Google, Facebook and YouTube and top or second in "just about everything". A recent development was mobile "popshop" purchasing engines, one of which was turning over $200,000 a month, "and we can have tens of these, selling everything from phone to robots," she says.

Another Brit was Kerin O'Connor of political magazine The Week, with a tale of growth and development over only 21 years, and the addition of separate digital version only five years ago. This was of course, a case for the power of print, though of course, another argument for weekly publishing.

With opposite number Shayne Currie's story of growth at recently merged NZME - with its integrated print/digital/broadcast newsroom - and Boucher's spirit and willingness to have a go, I started wondering whether they should be leading a cross-Tasman initiative to take over the very profitable but seemingly unwanted regional print businesses languishing in Australia.

The now-annual chief executives' panel didn't help a lot, with participants - Greg Hywood (Fairfax) and Michael Miller (News Corp Australia) on stage with Seven West's Chris Wharton linked by satellite, and no-one from APN present - holding their cards close on most of the interesting issues.

Nor did overseas speakers Kalle Jungkvist - formerly of Schibsted in Sweden - and the Canadian duo of Jean-Marc de Jonghe of La Presse and TorStar's Cooke. Looks like the weekday print editions sacrificed to the much talked-of La Presse+ app may have been on their last legs in any case, and the opportunity to build the business overdue.

But hard not to be impressed by the local - and not accidentally, female - talent, especially News chief technology officer Alisa Bowen in a Digital Future tech panel, and the four mums - Nicole Sheffield (News), Amy McDonald (OMD), Melina Cruickshank (Domain Group) and Karren Rogers (Facebook and Instagram) in the NextGen panel talking culture and digital change while at the same time coping with the challenge of bringing up their families. One real problem, newly-appointed managing director of News DNA Sheffield says is luring good staff back from maternity, when the breakeven point for a family with two children in childcare is $107,000 a year.

With Hegarty Scholarship winner Jared Savage - reporting back on his scholarship tour - there was plenty to relish and be proud of... and by the end, still a few left in the room.

Peter Coleman

Pictured: Panellists (from left) Nicole Sheffield, Melina Cruickshank, Karren Rogers and Amy McDonald

On our homepage: Michael Cooke (left) and Jean-Marc de Jonghe reflect on the success of their Canadian app projects

See also:

Regional profits on special at Sainsbury's

Not stupid: Subscribers are stayers for Dennis weeklies

PANPA Newspaper of the Year winners

Advertising and marketing awards

Sections: Newsmedia industry

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