The Press

Colourful Autumn

By RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL

Ilooks like being a colourful autumn in 'Fleet Street. The colours will not all be gay; there will be some autumn tints. The National Federation of Retail Newsagents last week decided to ask the promoters of the colour supplements of the Observer and the Daily Tele- graph (the latter is supposed to be published on Fridays) for 2d. per supplement for insertion and delivery. The Observer has publicly committed itself to come out on September 6 at their present price of 6d. Newsagents on an average receive a discount on selling the Observer of 25 percent,_ i.e. Lid. With the extra 2d. for delivery of the colour supplement the newsagent will be taking 3-14. of the 6d. and the Observer probably some- thing under 22d. (after all, they have to pay to transport their papers in bulk to the newsagents).

In his interview with Mr. Kenneth Harris, Mr. David Astor has told us that the reader's sixpence only contributes 20 per cent of the cost of pro- ducing the black and white part of the paper. This means no allowance for the cost of the colour supplement. When the colour supplement conies out, with the newsagents grabbing an extra 2d. a copy, the percentage will be pro- portionately less. Mr. Astor will have urgently to seek further support from his advertisers who are now going to have increasing calls made upon them especially in the field of colour. The omens seem inauspicious.

The Weekend Telegraph seems to be in even greater trouble. They have not announced an exact date for their Friday colour supplement, beyond saying that it will appear in the autumn. I am told, however, that they now have a firm target date of Friday, September 25, for the first issue of the Telegraph weekend supplement, nearly three weeks after the advertised date of the Observer's colour magazine.

This country is sadly short of colour printing facilities, and such presses as are available take much longer than their continental rivals. I under- stand that the Telegraph consulted on technical

points the same firm, Axel Springei, of Ham- burg, which printed their once-for-all colour supplement last January on the Pope's visit to the Holy Land. The Telegraph have, however, never considered printing in Germany, as they feel that though speed and economy could be achieved in Germany the consequential rows with the British unions would be too vexatious They have determined to print with Bemrose. Bemrose is :a subsidiary of the News of the World.

Thus the Telegraph have solved their printing difficulties, at least for the moment. They still have to come to terms with the retail newsagents.

These are highly technical problems on which I would not presume to teach any grandmother to suck eggs. I know very little about business: but I would have thought that it would have been more prudent both for the Observer and for the Telegraph to have negotiated the rake-oils they were going to allow to the newsagents before they had firmly and publicly committed them- selves to their ventures.

Lord Thomson of Fleet, when he returns home from his jollifications with comrade Khrushchev in the waste-lands of Karakolsk, will also find a problem on his plate. When he started his Sunday Times colour magazine three years ago he made an arrangement with the newsagents that he would pay them an extra id. a week for handling it and authorised them to collect another id. a week from those to whom they delivered it

all for the newsagents. Now the newsagents are saying that Lord Thomson, like Mr. Michael Berry and Mr. David Astor, must pay 2d.

Lord Thomson has a move either way. He could join forces with Mr. Berry and Mr. Astor and fight it out with the newsagents. Alternatively, he could agree to the sumptuary twopence, feeling that with his commanding lead he could afford this levy better than his two yet unborn rivals.

The Weekend Telegraph might well follow such a lead. Their objective, as I explained two months ago in a piece entitled 'Mr: Berry's Ramillies,' is not to augment the Friday's sale

of the Daily Telegraph: it is to help their ailing sister, the Sunday Telegraph, by making life as difficult and as expensive as possible for the Observer. The Camrose Berrys (Goodberries, as I have always called them) are incomparably the richest family actively operating in Fleet Street. I much misjudge the cool temper of Mr. Michael Berry if I were to suppose that he would throw away his Battle of Ramillies for a miserly 1,300,000 penny farthings. After all, that is only an outlay of £6,770 every Friday fifty-one times a year (the daily papers do not appear on the anniversary of the Crucifixion), say £345,000 per annum. Of course, as the Observer only has about half the circulation of the Daily Telegraph and of the Sunday Times, the levy on Mr. Astor will only be approximately half that imposed on Mr. Berry and Lord Thomson.

When he started the colour supplement Lord Thomson entered into no firm contract with the newsagents; at that time be had the monopoly. It's very different now. The newsagents have the whip hand and it might appear that they were abusing the power they have: but they have a side to their story. They claim that when Lord Thomson made his arrangement he assured them that no other such venture was possible. Now two others are projected.

And in addition, World's Press News has announced that the Daily Mail and Daily Express are planning to form a joint company to produce two other colour magazines on photogravure. The Express and the Mail have neither confirmed nor denied this story. A story in World's Press News can be somewhat suspect: they do not often print something which would be embarras- sing to newspaper proprietors. Mr. Basil Burton (a first cousin of Lord Rothermere and Mr. Cecil Harmsworth King) was until last month the proprietor. Under his control World's Press News seldom printed important news about developments in Fleet Street. It was usually more concerned with reporting the transfer of a sub- editor from Huddersfield to Hull. Now, when they occasionally have important news such as the projected but unconfirmed joint publication by the Express and Mail of a colour supplement, we must assume that it was an inspired leak.

The idea, according to World's Press News, is that each paper will have its own colour supple- ment but that they will be produced on the same presses. At the moment there are no presses in the country capable of producing the six or seven million coloured magazines that would be required each week. The presses will have to be imported. The newsagents are using this threat (which may in fact only be a bluff—a spanner thrown into the works) as an excuse for their twopenny surcharge on the existing or imminently Projected colour magazines.

This article is written somewhat from the point Of view of newspaper proprietors. Perhaps it does not take sufficient account of the legitimate in- terests of the newsagents of which I am not yet fully informed. But I am getting in touch with them and trust that next week I shall be in a Position to write more largely on the colourful autumn and the possible autumn tints.

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Tail Piece : Overheard in El Vino's:

Q. 'What is the difference between the Observer and the Sunday Times?'

A. 'In the Observer Kenneth Harris interviews David Astor. In the Sunday Times Roy Thom- son interviews Khrushchev.' See what I mean?