If You’re A 'Local' Paper, Concentrate On The Good News

Philip M. Stone October 2, 2007

London’s Evening Standard, under intense competition from two free PM newspapers, has adopted a new editorial policy – accentuate the positive and rely less on headlines promoting bad news. The bad news won’t disappear, but the paper is now looking to strike a balance.

It’s all part of an £8 million ($16 million, €11.4 million) remake for the newspaper that includes new promotion, design tweaks, even new uniforms for vendors.

But the emphasis on the “good news” is really important. The two free newspapers that between them distribute about 900,000 copies every weeknight are perceived to have a more positive feel rather than the type of headlines the Standard  is known for --  “Government in Peril” Transport Crisis Looms” and the like.

Could it be that people when they moan about newspapers printing only the “bad news” and not enough “good news” are actually telling publishers what they really want to read?

The Standard now says it wants to be more of a “London” newspaper. Sure it will report national and international events but now the newspaper “should have a strong London feel”, according to  a memo by the newspaper’s deputy editor.

It brings to mind a speech given by Richard Scase, one of the United Kingdom's leading professional facilitators and business forecasters for 2010 and beyond, who told the British Society of Editors at their annual conference a couple of years back  that the more local a newspaper positions itself then the more that newspaper should report the community’s positive news, and it should steer away from sensational crime reporting.

Scase in his speech told editors that people were becoming suspicious, cynical, and basically less-trustworthy of their national media  and they were looking for something very different from their local and regional press.

He said that when it comes down to reporting at the local community level people are looking continually for reinforcement that they have made the right decision in where they have chosen to live, to raise a family, and try to enjoy the good life. So, to really attract the local readership, “play down the murders and the attacks,” and accentuate the positive, he advised.

That doesn’t mean that the crime, fire, and political beats are out of the window, but in the subjective editing world of deciding what stories get the most prominence it’s the “good news” headline of someone or some organization doing well that the community really wants to read about rather than some sordid crime.

The Standard’s deputy editor wrote his staff, “Remember, reader don’t want to be coshed (hit over the head) by doom and disaster stories as they struggle home on the Tubes (subway, metro) trains and buses.” So, for Scase, who sets his mark on what should be happening in 2010 and beyond it would appear the Standard has got the message early.

Watching what is actually going on now at the Evening Standard as it begins its fight-back against the free newspapers is an interesting laboratory exam that bears watching in the months to come.

Besides various editorial changes, redesign tweaks designed to better “signpost” articles, more business content and more interaction between the print edition and its new web site launched a week ago, the newspaper is also spending some £3 million ($6.1 million, €4.35 million) on promotion, is bringing to market a state-of-the art electronic payment system and installing 32 inch LCD video screens at newsstands providing editorial news and advertising messages.

The use of its Eros pre-pay card (each usage transmitted via radio) got underway last week. The user gets a discount off the normal 50 pence price of the paper, the discount level determined by how much money is pre-loaded onto the card via the Internet. Loading £4 ($8.10) onto a card will bring the paper’s daily price down to 40 pence, while loading £34 ($70, €50) brings the per-paper cost down to 34 pence.

The Standard used to cost 40 pence a copy before the free newspapers hit town but as part of its strategy to fight them off the Standard raised its price to 50 pence – a strategy that few people understood although management probably believed it could market a “get what you pay for” campaign.

But it didn’t work. Some 900,000 free newspapers distributed on its patch nightly  had the expected negative effect. The official August, 2007, audit numbers showed the Standard’s circulation down 11.38% from last August to 277,555 copies but dig into those numbers and the results are really much worse. A year ago the circulation was 317,511 of which 12% (some 38,000 copies) were bulk sales to hotels, airlines and the like at greatly discounted prices.  Today’s 277,555 figure includes 34% bulk sales (95,111 copies). Do a like-on-like of full price sales and it is 182,444 today compared to 279,433 of a year ago, down almost 100,000 copies (34%).

There  has been some speculation that Associated Newspapers might give up on the Standard, but with the investments announced from shaping up the vendors, to making their newsstands state-of-the-art it would seem pretty obvious Associated Newspapers has started an all-out onslaught to protect and build its paid-for evening brand.

The use of the Eros card definitely needs watching. For the first time the Standard will find out every day who is actually buying their newspaper, how often, and where they live – information that its sales department would have killed for in the past to  entice advertisers. In exchange, besides a cheaper newspaper there are free music downloads and discounts available for some restaurants and merchants with the list surely growing as the card usage grows.

The Standard had commissioned market research to know its place in the pecking order. It found, as seems to be true almost everywhere, that free newspaper readers tend to be younger (average age around 34 for its two free competitors) whereas the average age of the Standard’s reader is 40. And whereas it was thought many of the Standard’s readers actually took long commutes outside of London, it turns out the vast majority are within three zones closest to the city center.

So, more local readers than previously thought will now give the paper a more concentrated London “feel”, and a more mature audience means stories of more interest to that age group, hence the increase in business news. The switch to a more “good news” format will serve to reinforce decisions the older folks have already decided upon for their lifestyle such as the community they have chosen to live in.

The audit numbers for the next six months or so will tell us whether all of that, along with the promotional spend, can save a paid-for newspaper from its competitive free newspaper rivals.

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