Chapter 79 Free Evening News
The Sunday Independent is the Sunday edition of the Independent. It can be said that almost all major national newspapers in England at this time had their corresponding Sunday editions.
The first to do this was The Times.
In the 1980s, this newspaper was the first to publish a Sunday edition, and other newspapers later followed suit.
But now, in order to cater to different readership groups, these Sunday edition newspapers publish different content sections to catch the attention of children, businessmen and fashion lovers. In the end, the content of the newspapers is like hot Inflated like a balloon, it was filled with famous special issues and magazines.
At the beginning, readers will feel as if they have picked up something as heavy as a newborn baby from the newspaper office, but more than half of the content is thrown away without reading.
However, this newspaper concept did work, and soon all weekend newspapers became more wasteful.
Last year, the weekend edition of The Guardian increased by 60%, almost as heavy as the monthly edition.
Precisely published special issues can really grab the attention of this group of people. "Observer Food Monthly" and "Observer Sports Monthly" increased sales of weekend newspapers by 6%.
However, some research results of the US newspaper market show that one of the reasons why young readers do not read newspapers is that they are deeply concerned about environmental issues - they believe that such heavy newspapers are too heavy. What a waste of paper...
Barron's idea is to suspend the publication of the increasingly large "Sunday Independent" and turn this newspaper into a free evening paper.
“The price of our "Independent" can be said to be relatively high among newspapers of the same type, but we need to prove that we are worth the price with quality and depth. In contrast, we also need There are newspapers with sufficient circulation to ensure that we cover the readership, so running another free evening newspaper is a good choice.”
Barron’s opinion is shared by others, including Whitney. I agree with it all, but there are also difficulties.
Whitney said:
“But Your Highness the Duke, if we run another evening newspaper and distribute it for free, then there will be problems both in terms of editorial staff and funding. .”
"I understand your concerns, Mr. Editor-in-Chief, but this is not without solutions. In terms of personnel, in fact, as a free newspaper, we only need this newspaper to pass the time for readers while waiting in the subway or other places. Therefore, in terms of content, there is no need to be as sophisticated as The Independent. We have rich content from the official website and some novel reports from online editors, which can all be put directly into this free evening newspaper. Of course, in order to avoid affecting the image of The Independent in the minds of readers, we need this evening newspaper How about another name, such as "London Evening News"? >
Seeing his suggestion, both Bob and Whitney agreed. Barron continued:
“As for funding, you can rest assured that in addition to the INM Group’s compensation, On top of our £5 million, independent newspapers will also receive a significant sum of money to use It is enough to improve these plans, and once the circulation of our evening newspaper increases, even if it reaches more than 500,000 copies, the subsequent advertising expenses will be enough to make us a huge profit.”
Barron has no doubt that publishing a free evening paper would be profitable.
Because until more than ten years later, when the traditional newspaper market was generally declining, several free newspapers in the UK bucked the trend and became popular and prospered, becoming a highlight.
The most typical one is the London Evening Standard. They were originally the only paid evening newspaper in London. Because they had no competitors, they were doing well before.
However, later, United Press Group and News Corporation successively launched two evening newspapers, "London Nut" and "London News", to compete for the evening newspaper market.
Affected by this, the circulation of the "London Evening Standard" continued to decline. By 2009, there were only 250,000 copies, an annual loss of 10 million pounds, and it was on the verge of bankruptcy.
United Newspaper Group regarded this as a burden and sold 75.1% of the shares of the Evening Standard to Alexander Lebedev, a Russian billionaire and former KGB member of the Soviet Union, for a symbolic price of 1 pound. —Well, that's the guy who later bought the "Independent" for 1 pound...
After that, Lebedev, the new owner of the "London Evening Standard", turned the newspaper into a free newspaper. Once again dominated the London evening newspaper market.
After the transformation, the circulation of the "London Evening Standard" continued to grow from the initial 600,000 copies, and later stabilized at around 900,000 copies, and gradually turned a profit. From January to September 2015, the operating income of the "London Evening Standard" reached 71.3 million pounds, a year-on-year increase of 13%; the pre-tax profit reached 3.4 million pounds, a three-fold increase year-on-year. The annual salary of the newspaper's senior executives, It has also increased from £200,000 to £410,000.
It is precisely because of the huge potential of the free market that later the Financial Times and the Daily Mirror also launched their own free tabloids and distributed them in specific markets.
Why are free newspapers so successful in Britain?
Later media experts believe that the main reasons are as follows: first, there is no mobile signal in the London Underground, and this "vacuum" also leaves more room for newspapers to survive; second, free is important factor, you can watch it without spending money, which greatly reduces people's The third is accurate positioning. Both the Metro and the London Evening Standard position themselves as "fast food" newspapers. Although the two newspapers are free, they are well-designed, fresh in layout and rich in content, making them ideal for urban white-collar workers commuting to get off work. A delicious "spiritual snack" on the way.
Therefore, Barron's decision was also made after considering the future development of the British newspaper industry - he himself was preparing to vigorously develop the official website of "The Independent", but you must know that in this era, the Internet is still PC-based It is the absolute main force and has access to the Internet. Among the general public, there may be only one in ten. Therefore, putting some of the more interesting "novel" content of their online version directly on the free evening newspaper still has a huge impact. audience.
This can be regarded as making the best use of everything.
Furthermore, free newspapers really have a huge "money source" and can guarantee a huge circulation - a slightly larger free evening newspaper can easily have a circulation of more than 500,000 copies. , after all, it is free, so those messages reach a wider range, and it is easier to ensure Barron's influence.
"The Independent" occupies the elite class, "London Evening News" occupies the mass class, and the Internet occupies the future. This is Barron's plan for the independent newspaper industry in the media industry.
As for what Barron said just now, that the independent newspaper industry will receive a large sum of money, this is what he is going to talk to the two of them next.
This involves Barron's real estate plan in London - in addition to the layout of the renovation of King's Cross, Barron is also preparing to build two towers in London.
One is the Cavendish Hotel, which was originally located in Soho. At the location of that hotel, he planned to knock down the old building and build the first building.
After that, a second building will be built on the site of the Independent Newspaper Building in Canary Wharf.
The specific plan is for DS Asset Management, a subsidiary of DS Capital, to acquire the land of the Cavendish Hotel and then build the Cavendish Building there.
After the Cavendish Hotel Group obtains funds, it can use it to accelerate development, and then rent some of the floors in the Cavendish Building after it is completed to reopen the Cavendish (Soho) Hotel .
After the Cavendish Building is completed, the Independent Newspapers will temporarily relocate to it.
Then DS Asset Management acquired the Independent Newspaper Building and built a second building on the original site - Devonshire Media Building.
The independent newspaper industry can use these funds to carry out its own development.
All real estate, held by DS Asset Management, including Cavendish Hotel Group and Independent Newspapers, has access to funds to develop itself.
The data during the new book period is related to subsequent recommendations, so follow-up reading is very important. I beg you not to keep it all the time. If you feel it is okay, read it every day to help increase follow-up reading. Thank you very much.
(End of this chapter)