The same old stories
The latest circulation figures for newspapers in Scotland are out, and frankly there’s little point in analysing them in any great detail as the results are pretty much identical to the last time we did it. That is, everything except the i is going down the toilet, the Scottish Sun is continuing to pull further and further ahead of the Daily Record, and its new Sunday edition is breathing ever-closer down the neck of the Record’s sister paper the Sunday Mail, which shed almost a quarter of its readers in the last year.
As with the previous figures, most publications have seen 12-month drops in the range of 10%-25%, what you might broadly term “right-wing” papers have held up slightly better than more left-wing ones, and several have monthly readership figures lower than the monthly number of unique visitors to this humble website.
We’ll pause only to wonder whether there might be some sort of a connection between the generally-worse performance of the left-wing papers and the fact that the parties they support are increasingly abandoning the traditional left-wing values of their readers (while the Sun, which backs the most left-wing major party in Scotland, is doing rather better despite the supposed “toxicity” of its owner), and leave it at that.
Don’t buy ‘Scottish’ papers – you’re just funding the NO campaign.
When visiting, my mother in law bought a copy of the Scotsman. I was horrified and went on to explain why. She then explained it was ok as she’d just bought it for gathering vegetable peelings for the compost bin etc.
With a little more constraint, readers of these pages could help bring foward the much anticipated death of The Scotsman and The (Glasgow) Herald.
For those who point at the painfull job losses that will surely follow, I concur that there will be a heavy price to pay for those no longer working in the print media. And while my heart will retain compassion & hope for those looking for new work, the logic in my head reminds me of the tired, old, inefficient & to some extent, irrelevent heavy industries that were initially outclassed, then overwhelmed by a different type of competition from the Far East.
Today, the competition in the media seems like it is coming from everywhere. The internet has elminated trade barriers & boundaries. New media is literally starting up in bedrooms, just like the early days of internet radio & social networks.
That some titles have chosen to join our beloved State Sponsor of British Propaganda, the SSBP, also known as the BBC, by taking a virulent, anti SNP position while making it easy going for the Unionist parties from Westminster & Holyrood, their editorial stance may actually be having little additional impact on their downward readership trend unless of course, readers like us chose to stick the boot in. Only last week, I made expeditious use of my on-line Doc Martins by abandoning completely, any further online response to any story in both the above titles, thus reducing in my own small way, the lucrative click advertising rate.
Only the I title appears to have bucked the trend, most probably because it costs a recession busting 20p, which surely reflects a priority shift amongst those who continue to choose print media for their titillating snippets, salacious gossip, celebrity scandal & most importantly, a considered disection & review of X-Factor discards.
How we deal with the SSBP (BBC) is quite another matter. The monopoly of the license fee is deeply troubling & almost insurmountable. The public have been spoon fed by this inward looking shibboleth, supposedly representative Unionist, Jack waving, pro Royalty, British Bulldog, Dunkirk spirit, warm beer, green lawn, stiff upper lip, Waterloo, Churchill, Kingdom Brunel, Land of Hope & Glory, benevolent Empire, 1966, University boat race, village cricket, Magna Carta, Birthday Honours, Beefeater, Cockney slang, doff yer hats-toffs know best, propaganda for generations.
Answers on the back of a Union Jack postcard using 50 words or less. I intend to stop funding the BBC by cancelling my License Fee because …
There is a gaping hole begging to be filled here. Is it without the bounds of possibility that with the breadth of talent to be seen in the varied individual blogs and small news sites centred on independence that the core of a new Scottish media entity can’t be brought about? We’ve all been on these sites and seen threads like this where the same tune will eventually play out – they deserve tae fall, reap what ye sow, no sympathy fer ye, burn them all.
What we’re actually saying is we dislike the publishers and their editorial remit. But thousands of jobs rely on this industry in production areas. Are we really going to party and laugh when these people wind up on the dole? Wouldn’t it be healthier and a bit more helpful to create a credible competition? Secure jobs for production staff and press and print suppliers, create fit for purpose broadcast media? If we’re so upset about how restrictive of view and commentary the current crop are howabout we do something constructive and positive like pooling independence minded journalistic resource or in fact not independence minded, simply objective and fair journalistic resource. Being positive about reindustrialising Scotland isn’t restricted to renewables, the media market is huge and could use a 21st century facelift securing thousands of jobs for the future.
I know printers and pre press like myself hardly cross the radar of editors and journos, but there are a lot more of us than there are of them and each one is a vote in autumn 2014.
“Wouldn’t it be healthier and a bit more helpful to create a credible competition?”
It certainly would, but as the saying goes, as long as we’re dreaming I’d like a pony.
Sadly – and believe me, in my line of work I’m sad about it – I don’t think print media can be saved. It’s simply a massively inefficient and impractical way of delivering news. Even if there was a decent and balanced Scottish newspaper, I almost certainly wouldn’t be able to buy it where I live, just like I can’t buy the Herald or Scotsman or Scottish edition of the Times. Shunting heavy physical objects all over the country to sell them for 50p just isn’t a very viable business model any more, and will only get less and less attractive as a greater and greater proportion of the population owns pocket-sized devices on which the same information (or rather, a better and more up to date version of it) can be delivered in an enormously more convenient format.
(Seriously, whenever I see anyone trying to read a broadsheet on a bus or a train I think “Hell mend publishers for driving their customers away”.)
I’m not sure there’s a solution. I’m hugely nostalgic for the days of videogame amusement arcades, but they never stood a chance once home consoles caught up with the technology. There was simply no stopping their long slow march to death, and try as I might I can’t see a way for printed mass media to escape the same fate.
Och you are right Rev. Most of us in production areas are well aware that newsprint is on the way out. Current levels of technology in production have pretty much levelled out and social trends in information gathering have changed the world over. We reckon 10-20 years will see it out. But while not what it was, newsprint is still a powerful beast and we’re dealing with it now.
I’m lucky got onto the dark side of the force (commercial print), which has a somewhat longer life expectancy. We all need to wrap goods in some kind of packaging and what would your day be like without having to bend over and pick up some advertising junk mail?
Still, a lot of friends in the big plants are looking at a dark future. Wonder if this is how the scribes felt when Caxton toddled along?
Near forgot.
Hope that booklet got through to you ok.
It did, ta. Just having a look at it.
GHG, here’s my post card, sorry can’t afford the postage so sending it via the very nice Rev Stu’s site instead, hope he doesn’t mind.
Answers on the back of a Union Jack postcard using 50 words or less.
I intend to stop have already ceased funding the BBC by cancelling my License Fee because …
Like turkeys who don’t vote for Christmas I’m a SCOTTISH PATRIOT who doesn’t intend financing State Sponsored Propaganda Broadcaster. (SSPB) Propaganda ceased to be a requirement of the BBC in 1945. I want the TRUTH NOT a Goebbelised version of the truth. Give me a SCOTTISH broadcaster in an Independent Scotland and I’ll reconsider my position, until then no way Jose will I pay another penny to the SSPB.
It would be nice to think the Scottish press’ treatment of the independence referendum has something to do with it, but the same decline affects the London based newspapers as well.
@ H Scott
The decline in sales in Scotland is running at twice the rate in Scotland compared to the rUK.
The internet is thus not the sole cause I’d suggest.
There’s likely a widening disconnect between the public and the papers. You have a media that is largely hostile to the Scots, Scottish government and SNP and a people who are mostly in favour of these. How often do you want to listen to someone say you are “too wee, too poor, too stupid”? Are you likely to relish the London-themed jock-bashing sessions as if you were some kind of self-loathing or guilt-ridden flagellant? How often do you want to hear someone run down one of the few competent governments we’ve had in a generation – one that you and many others support and/or voted for? This was bound to have an impact.
The hardcore unionist propaganda machine has foolishly followed the London line and will likely keep doing so to its grave or until their readership declines to that sad handful of plastic jack waving crackpots who will support it to the bitter end and never listen to reason. Jingoistic anti-Scots bashing might go down a treat in London, but trying to sell your hatred to the object of that hate is bound to be a harder sell. I’m just amazed it has taken this long.
I have stopped paying the licence fee because I have stopped watching television and thoroughly enjoy not having to support the BBC propoganda machine. I find plenty to interest me on the internet, twitter is very good.