The press
Dog-eats-dog days
Paul Johnson
ast Week the Audit Bureau of Circula-
tion issued its national newspaper figures for the first six months of 1983. Fleet Street can draw a little though not much comfort from them. At the quality end, some of the dailies are doing well. The Guardian, which still appears to be enjoying `natural' growth, turned in its best-ever January-June average of 437,222, represen- ting a 4 per cent increase. It claims that in June its sales averaged 450,000 copies a day. The Financial Times also did well, averaging 215,570, a 6.43 per cent increase on last year, until one of the least defensible strikes in Fleet Street history knocked it out of the game completely. The Times did the best of all: its 336,189 average represented an increase of 35,489 over last year, a whopping 11.80 per cent. Some of this, however, must reflect Rupert Murdoch's low cover-price strategy. At 20p the Times Is now 3p cheaper than the Guardian and 113P cheaper than the FT.
With its cover-price the same as The Times, it's not surprising that the Daily Telegraph is the chief loser at the quality end. Its sales now average 1,266,069, nearly 40,000 (or 3 per cent) down on last year. It no longer dominates the qualities in quite the same self-assured manner as of old, and some will begin to question whether its steady as she goes' policy is still good enough. What makes the position more serious is that its sister-paper, the Sunday Telegraph, had a particularly bad first half in 1983. With its average sales down to 738,193, it lost 112,133 over the year, more than both the Observer and the Sunday Tones put together, and the percentage fall (13:18) was higher than that of any other national newspaper, daily or Sunday. At the popular end of the market, the figures are disturbing. The Daily Express, now well below two million, lost 143,126 readers over the year. The Daily Mail did Poorly too, losing 88,438, but its percentage loss, 4.66 per cent, was less serious than the Express's (over 7 per cent) and its sales are now within 80,000-odd of the Express 'I8ure. The Daily Mirror, all things con- sidered, did reasonably well to keep its losses down to 40,618, only 1.21 per cent of its 3,315,070 sale. But it must face the fact that it has now lost the circulation battle with the Sun, certainly for the time being. he Sun averaged 4,170,909 over the first hal f of 1983, over 800,000 copies a day More than the Mirror; indeed it was the Only Popular daily to put on sales in 1983: an extra 93,018 or 2.28 per cent. Here again, the Murdoch low-price policy helps: the. Sun has a 1 p price advantage over the ,.11',IError, and no less than 3p over the Express and Mail. Among the Sundays, it was gloom all round, with all the established papers losing sales, some very heavily. Of course the total Sunday market had to accommodate the new Mail on Sunday, which produced a very creditable average figure for the first half of this year of 1,307,060. This had the net effect of increasing Sunday newspaper sales from 17,400,000 to a little over 17,700,000, an extra 300,000. But the re- maining million of the Mail on Sunday's figure had to come from the rest of the field. As noted, the Sunday Telegraph lost over 100,000. The Sunday Express, not sur- prisingly, was the biggest loser, by 3I2,932, some 10.68 per cent of its circula- tion. The News of the World lost nearly 240,000 (5.55 per cent), and the two Mirror Group papers, the Sunday People and the Sunday Mirror, lost 240,000 odd between them. The Observer dropped 62,363, more than 7 per cent of its sales. The Sunday Times produced a figure of 1,288,448, only 26,265 (1.99 per cent) down on last year; compared with its rivals, this was a healthy result, bearing in mind that the Sunday Times, unlike the other Murdoch paper, is not underpriced. At 40p it costs 5p more than the Observer and 10p more than the Sunday Telegraph.
Shrinking circulations do not necessarily mean falling profits of course. In fact, with the obvious exception of the FT, the finan- cial prospects of Fleet Street look brighter than one would have guessed a year or so ago — thanks in part to the extraordinary injection of funds provided by the huge profits of Reuters. In many cases, too, costs have been cut severely. The Express Group, which has benefited most from the Reuters boom, is making a modest return on capital and those of its employees who brought its shares in the dog-days are now chuckling. Associated Newspapers, despite the enor- mous start-up costs of the Mail on Sunday, which had two lavish launchings, produced profits of £6.99 million for the half-year up to 31 March, an increase of £1.61 million. The Murdoch empire, with the Sun boom- ing, the Times losses well down, the Sunday Times recovering financially and the News of the World still turning sin into gold, is in prosperous shape.
All the same, looked at purely as com- mercial ventures, the national newspaper groups are not as a rule good investments, in that they show a poor return on capital. Last year, for instance, the Mirror Group, which is owned by the big paper-and-magazines firm Reid International, made a profit of £8 million on a turnover of £263 million. In the time of Cecil King this was the most dynamic newspaper group in Britain, in- deed in the world, always expanding and buying up properties. But it has been quies- cent and unadventurous for a long time now — one reason why rumours of a takeover are circulating. The man said to be planning it is none other than the famous, or notorious, Robert Maxwell, once attack- ed by the Board of Trade, now hailed in the printing industry as a saviour. He has cer- tainly saved the British Printing Corporation, and many thousands of jobs in the process, and must now be regarded as one of the most successful tycoons in the trade. Believing that Fleet Street needs rumbustious characters, I would be happy to see Max- well join the club. Who knows? He might even persuade the other proprietors to pre- sent a united front to the print unions.
One thing we could be sure of: if Maxwell became a press tycoon and, in due course, got his peerage, he could be relied on to turn up when Fleet Street was debated. When the Lords dismissed the press's handling of the Yorkshire Ripper case recently, Fleet Street came in for severe censure on all sides. The decline of popular newspaper cir- culations was generally quoted as the reason why standards had fallen so fast in the last few years. One point made again and again by peers was that none of the press lords had troubled, or dared, to be present to de- fend Fleet Street from attack.
`Oh, no — not again! Will you inform Mr Muggeridge that he will have to wait his turn like everyone else?'
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