The press
Proprietors good and bad
Paul Johnson
The Reuters fiesta is now over, and was on a much smaller scale than excitable people predicted. At one time Reuters was said to be worth £1.5 billion; in the event the market judged the value to be £825 million, not much more than half. Then again, many newspaper groups chose to realise only part of their holdings. The big- gest seller was Thomson's, which took out over £20 million. Fleet Street groups which cashed in shares were, in descending order: the Daily Mail group, £14.9 million; Mirror group, £10.4 million; Daily Telegraph, £6.7 million; Express group, £5.7 million; Guar- dian, £5.1 million;. and Financial Times, £1 million. These sums are not very large, in terms of the capital investments now re- quired of newspapers which wish to remain bouncy. Thus, for purposes of comparison, the Telegraph is spending about £75 million on its new printing plant on the Isle of Dogs. So the notion that the Reuters float was to solve all Fleet Street's problems, which no one of sense really believed in, has proved a fantasy. The float has been neither faerie gold nor a deus ex machina.
A proprietor who chose to hang on to all his shares was Rupert Murdoch, and this suggests to me that one of his long-term aims may be to get control of Reuters outright. The days when he needed to make a fast buck are long since past. Even in his American operations, where the require- ment for cash or collateral is probably the most pressing in his entire world empire, his position has been enormously strengthened by his multi-million-pound killing in the Warner Brothers operation. So far as Bri- tain is concerned, his business, after some vertiginous moments in 1981-2, is prosper- ing mightily. The Sun continues to earn huge profits. The relaunch of the News of the World has been, all things considered, a conspicuous success, and its already substantial profits can be expected to rise accordingly. Both the Times and the Sun- day Times are now under stable and suc- cessful editorial direction, and here again handsome profits are on the way. For the first time in years, Murdoch and his British papers have slipped gratefully out of the news. His visits to London have become in- frequent and much less frenzied. It is all a big change, is it not?
Meanwhile, attention has switched to Fleet Street's two big enigmas: Fleet Holdings, which publishes the Express group, and Reed International's Mirror Group Newspapers. Both are vulnerable. Neither is likely to be in the same hands in, say, a year's time. Fleet shares were rising last week, when most others were going down, in anticipation of action by the Australian operator, Robert Holmes a Court. He already has Lew Grade's old empire, the Associated Communications Corporation, plus a reputed ten per cent of Fleet. Is he to get control? He could scarce- ly be a worse proprietor than Lord Mat- thews. The group's finances look reason- ably healthy thanks largely to its Morgan- Grampian magazines, but among the newspapers there are unresolved problems. The new Standard continues to slide down. The Sunday Express has faced up remarkably well to the fierce onslaught by the Mail on Sunday, but its embattled old formula has got to be changed some day, and to what? As for the Express, Larry Lamb has done his considerable best — no thanks to Matthews — but there is still a marked absence of editorial glamour, or enthusiasm among the staff. What the group desperately needs is a boss with a bit
of magic, who can make people feel the are working for a firm with a future. M is, all thoughts dwell on the lamented, irre- coverable past under Beaverbrook.
The Mirror Group's position is similar' Bartholomew, Cecil King, Hugh Cale — the great days seem an awfully long tinle ago. There is no dominant figure in the entire organisation, and newspapers, as rie often insisted, need dominant figures. 111,,e idea, last year, was that the Mirror Gr°,14 would be floated this July, on the crest 013 financial wave generated by Reuters and the group's own improved financial perforny ance. But since then the Reuters tinsel has worn off and the group's own profit carve has turned downwards. There is the Pio; spect of worse to come, including heav,;t promotional outlays for the Sunday Orr" and Sunday People, to fight off the 0t' id sive from the tabloid News of the W°1.1.0 So it is not at all certain that the float `wl, take place, and an outright sale is possibility. The group's boss, Clive Thornton, 11;e
a former wonder boy from Abbey Natioll'e
seems far from being the dominant fig11,r.1s the papers need, and rumours of 1' impending exit persist. He is fond of giviri,! interviews and making speeches, precious little action follows. He went public about the expense accounts Of ror journalists and executives, which are 01 deed princely, but since then I have ne, heard any screams of deprivation co1101; from Holborn Circus. His motto seems opposite of Theodore Roosevelt's: sPe" loudly and carry a matchstick.
Thornton was at it again last wee-- 4, the Sunday Times. Why, you may 7.„,p should the boss of one newspaper gru're give an exclusive interview about his fut,1111, plans to the flagship of the group wil1cid owning the Sun and the News of the Or nd poses the great threat to the prosperit31,31;t: even the existence of his own? You're rIS it makes no sense at all. What Thor-tittle had to say was not very sensible either' made 'firm and unequivocal' prornises d. launch not one but two newspapers. In a.iy, dition to his new left-wing morning dairo. about which we have heard before, T11°0. ton now says he will create a London evc-%, ing to rival the Standard. Oh really? perience seems to show there is barely rn°1 for one evening in London, let alone ty4f.of don't believe there is a commercial case es, either of Thornton's proposed ve1,1r.tikre and the notion of launching both at' '-
together is absurd. ..-kor/1"
All of which indicates to me that "Ito( ton is not long for Fleet Street. A proPrleeibsj must have the ability to inspire edir°,,.0 flair or a knack for handling the Pri`.0. industry (preferably both, of e01-77ert Thornton seems to have neither. g° Maxwell, who has been calmly waiting cif°. stage while the Thornton theatricals P„ot ceed, has no appeal on the editorial sicie his record with printing and publishing Ic; of blems is unrivalled and that is the kin, I talent the Mirror Group must hay' suspect he will get it in the end.
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