This report will investigate the effects that horizontal ownership has on media products – in particular, the local press. My case study will be based around North London Newspapers (NLN), which owns six weekly paid-for titles in the north London area.

Introduction
I am particularly interested in the different levels of priority awarded by NLN to its advertisers and readers of its publications and how that links with the company’s quest for efficiency and profitability.

In this report I will look at the homogenisation that occurs when a single company owns a series of titles in neighbouring geographical areas.

I will also look at the level of priority given to advertising in comparison to the editorial content in the local press.

To carry out these objectives I have chosen to look at the group’s publications from Thursday, August 12, 2004.

Background
North London Newspapers is based in Hornsey in the London Borough of Haringey. I spent a week in August 2004 working for the group as a reporter on the Islington Gazette and Camden Chronicle, the two most widely circulated of the group’s newspapers.

North London Newspapers publishes the following weekly, paid-for papers plus two free-sheet titles:
Gazette Series:

• Islington Gazette
• Camden Chronicle
• Islington Gazette EC1

Journal Series:

• Hornsey & Crouch End Journal
• Tottenham & Wood Green Journal
• Muswell Hill Journal

In September 2004 the Competition Commission cleared the acquisition of North London Newspapers by Archant Regional. They were previously owned by Independent News and Media plc (INM). The takeover was part of a £62 million deal for 27 paid-for titles from INM which also included publications in East London and Kent. When the Office of Fair Trading referred the takeover to the Competition Commission in April it noted:

“As a result of the acquisition, Archant now supplies more than 25 per cent of free and paid-for local newspapers in a substantial part of the UK.”

(OFT, 2004)

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Competitors
The main competitors of the Gazette series are the Ham & High, the High & I, the St John’s Wood and Maida Vale Express and the Broadway Express, collectively known as the Hampstead and Highgate Express series. These publications were already owned by Archant Regional Ltd prior to the acquisition of the North London Newspapers titles but their collective circulation is less than the collective circulation of the NLN titles. (See fig.1 below)

The current ABC circulation figures between 29 December 2003 to 27 June 2004 are as follows:

Publication series	Owner	Weekly circulation	Cover price
Gazette series	NLN (Archant)	13,120	40p
Journal series	NLN (Archant)	6,870	40p
Express series	H&H (Archant)	15,087	50p

fig 1, source: ABC

The acquisition fits into a pattern of increased concentration of ownership of regional titles. According to the Newspaper Society:

“The largest 20 regional press publishers now account for 85% of all regional press titles and 96% of total weekly circulation, exactly the same as at 1 January 2004.”

(www.newspapersoc.org.uk, July 2004)

According to Newspaper Society figures, Archant Regional now ranks sixth in circulation among the top 20 publishers of regional publications, while Independent News & Media Ltd ranks 11th (Newspaper Society, 2004). Following the acquisition, Archant Regional’s portfolio grew to 90 titles with an overall circulation of around than three million copies per week. The acquisition represents the last remaining weekly, paid-for publications owned by Independent News & Media Ltd and their combined circulations exceed 620,000 (Archant, 2003).

The acquisition enabled Archant to increase its coverage and advertising revenues while reducing overheads. In its final report on the merger the Competition Commission noted:

“It [Archant] saw the acquisitions as offering the scope for increasing investment in better processes and technology, and for cost reductions through sharing overheads.”

(Competition Commission, 22 September, 2004)

In Archant’s 2003 annual business report, Chief Executive John Fry said:

“Opportunities to acquire regional newspaper portfolios of quality and scale are few and far between, so we consider these acquisitions to be of significant strategic importance, given the geographic proximity to our existing areas of publication and the enhancement it gives to our coverage in and around London.”

(Archant, 2003)

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Homogenisation
Franklin and Murphy (1991) suggest that the increased concentration in media ownership has led to increased homogenisation in the content and style of local newspapers. This has occurred as independent companies have been bought out by larger groups so they can streamline their operations, reduce costs and eliminate the competition (O’Sullivan et al., 2003). This is likely to be the case in the acquisition of North London Newspapers which enjoys a higher circulation compared to Archant Regional’s existing north London titles (fig.1).

At the time of my placement the reporters and advertising teams for North London Newspapers’ titles were based in the same office. There were 16 advertising sales staff including managers, 10 editorial staff, 2 sub-editors, one editor plus a general manager (appendix 1). The advertising and editorial departments were on separate floors.

There were four reporters working on the Journal range of titles including the Tottenham & Wood Green Journal, Muswell Hill Journal and the Hornsey & Crouch End Journal. The remaining five reporters worked on the Islington Gazette, Camden Journal and the Islington Gazette EC1 edition.

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Content analysis
To prove that homogenisation occurs throughout the newspaper group I conducted a basic content analysis of the North London Newspapers series to see which pages were re-used across all publications and which were unique (appendix 2).

On Thursday 12th August 2004 each of the six publications had 64 pages containing the same amount of news, advertising and other items.

Of those 64 pages, 15 contained local news, 6 contained letters or competitions, 11 contained local sport, 6 contained TV and entertainment listings, 2 contained lifestyle features and 24 had no journalistic content at all, consisting of just adverts (appendix 3).

From each newspaper, only three pages of stories were unique to each publication; they were pages one, three and five.

With the exception of the Camden Chronicle, pages two, four, six, seven and eight of the publications were used for at least one other newspaper in the series, e.g. pages two, four, six, seven and eight in the Islington Gazette were also used in the Gazette EC1 edition.

From page nine onwards all the newspapers in both the Journal and Gazette series were exactly the same, using the same letters page, the same competitions and the same features. This means that 92 per cent of pages in the Islington Gazette were used in at least one other newspaper and 79 per cent of the pages were used in all six publications (appendix 4).

The sport pages were identical across all titles. All of the articles were written by either Paul Chronnel or Dave Evans who are part of a dedicated sports team based in Dagenham. It is here that all the sport content is written for Archant’s London publications.

The results of the content analysis show that the North London Newspapers and its parent company are maximising the number of titles they produce while minimising the amount of content they have to produce for each – this increases advertising profits, while keeping down staff, office and printing costs.

By tailoring the publication to specific areas within north London the advertising team can sell a wider geographical readership to its advertisers.

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Loss of local identity
Franklin and Murphy (1991) say that this type of horizontal ownership of regional and local media, as demonstrated by Archant Regional and North London Newspapers, leads to a loss of local identity. However, the newspaper series uses a range of devices to make readers feel that the publication is tailored solely for their community.

Although there is a small amount of tailored content in the various titles, similar themes are used. For instance, on page six of the Islington Gazette is a regular item called ‘You Said It’, a vox-pop of local people giving their opinion on a weekly topic.

While on placement I accompanied a photographer to conduct one of the vox-pops in Stroud Green (appendix 5). He told me that each week the location would rotate between the catchment areas of the various publications. The Journal and Gazette titles all contained the same panel of six members of the public.

The topic would always be the same across all three titles, in the week that I was on my placement the question was: ‘Should local authorities impose curfews on unruly children?’

The device of involving the local community in the production of the newspaper is a theme that is common to the range of publications and probably accounts for a small proportion of newspaper sales. Some people will buy a newspaper because they or someone they know is featured inside.

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Advertising
The main purpose of the publications is to make a profit and they achieve this through advertising. There is a continuous struggle for priority between the editorial and advertising departments for the newspapers. Without advertising the reason for the newspaper’s existence, i.e. profit, would be gone, but without good quality content readers would not buy the newspaper in the first place (O’Sullivan, 2003, p.186).

Kevin Williams points out that advertising is fundamental to the survival of all commercially funded publications:

“The overall impact of advertising on the structure of the newspapers market is underpinned by the fact that the vast majority of newspapers – national, regional morning and evening, local weeklies as well as trade and specialised publications – sell at a loss. Sales do not cover costs and profit is determined by advertising receipts.”

(1998, p.218)

A more detailed content analysis of the Islington Gazette reveals that, despite being a paid-for newspaper, more than half of its contents (around 52 per cent) are advertisements. (appendix 6)

Williams also points out that due to competition from free sheets, paid-for weeklies have not been able to increase their cover prices and depend instead on increased advertising volumes and cost cutting to remain profitable:

“Weeklies only raise 14 per cent of their revenue from sales compared to 38 per cent for regional dailies. This has meant that commercial interests have come to play a greater role than editorial interests in the material published by the local press.”

(1998, p.220)

According to the Competition Commission, advertising accounts for 95 per cent of total revenues for local weekly newspapers. In 2003 Greater London local weekly newspaper revenues from advertising were estimated at between £215 and £220 million a year (Competition Commission, 2003).

In Archant’s submission to the Competition Commission it refers to increased customer benefits but it considers its customers as the advertisers not its readers. Archant also makes reference to an improved product – the advertising package, not the publication itself.

“Archant's acquisition of INM titles has given it the ability to offer greater choice of and better value advertising packages. Archant can now seek to improve the quality of its products and its customer service.”

(Archant, 2004)

This reinforces the view that the primary function of this merger was to increase advertising revenues and create cost savings. In the Archant submission to the Competition Commission there was little or no mention of ‘readers’, only ‘consumers’. There was also no mention of editorial content, only advertising content.

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Conclusion
The newspaper industry is constantly seeking ways to increase profits, rationalise operations and increase efficiency (Franklin, 2003, p.6). In the case of the regional and local press lower circulations mean there is an increased reliance on advertising revenues to maintain profitability. As I have already mentioned, this has led editorial concerns to take a back seat and it is only the individual professional pride of the journalists that help maintain the quality of copy within local publications.

Publishing groups increasingly pool resources, newsgathering processes have been streamlined, content is shared and this has resulted in a standardisation across titles. In the case of North London Newspapers, the journalists work on more than one title and content is shared across the publications to save time and reduce costs.

To try and reverse what Franklin and Murphy (1991) describe as ‘sameness’ between titles, devices are employed by individual editorial teams to give the illusion that the publication is locally focussed. Stories are given a local angle and local place names are included wherever possible. It is apparent that the needs of advertisers are more highly valued by media proprietors than the requirements of their ‘consumers’.

However, the separation of editorial and advertising means that while those writing for the publication are under pressures of time and resources, they are able to remain focussed on the business of producing copy with their readers in mind and with minimal interference from the advertising department.

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More research projects

Dissertation Chapters:

Introduction

Background

Competitors

Homogenisation

Content Analysis

Loss of Local Identity

Advertising

Conclusion

References:

• ABC, online: http://www.abc.org.uk [Accessed 23 November 2004]

• Archant (2003), Archant Annual Report 2003, online:
http://www.archant.co.uk/content/
pdfs/ ARA03Business%20Report.pdf [Accessed 23 November 2004]

• Archant (2004), Initial submission by Archant Limited to the Competition Commission, 1 June 2004, online:
http://www.competition-commission.
org.uk/ inquiries/completed/2004/
archant [Accessed 23 November 2004]

• Competition Commission (2004), A report on the acquisition by Archant Limited of the London newspapers of Independent News and Media Limited, online:
http://www.competition-commission.
org.uk/inquiries/completed/2004/
archant/index.htm [Accessed 23 November 2004]

• Franklin, B. and Murphy, D. (1991), What News? Market, Politics and the Local Press, London: Routledge

• Franklin, B. (2003) ‘McJournalism’: The McDonaldization Thesis and Junk Journalism, online: http://www.psa.ac.uk/cps/
2003%5CBob%20Franklin.pdf [Accessed 25 November 2004]

• Newspaper Society (2004) Top 20 Regional Press Publishers - July 2004, online: http://www.newspapersoc.org.uk/
documents/ Newspapers&Publishers/
top20.html [Accessed 23 November 2004]

• Office of Fair Trading (2004) Completed acquisition by Archant Limited of the London Regionals Division of Independent News & Media plc, 29 April 2004, online: http://www.oft.gov.uk/Business/
Mergers+EA02/Decisions/
Clearances+and+referrals/
Archant+Limited.htm [Accessed 23 November 2004]

• O’Sullivan, T. et al. (2003), Studying the Media, London: Edward Arnold

• Williams, K. (1998), Get Me A Murder A Day, London: Arnold

 

Appendices:

• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3
• Appendix 4
• Appendix 5
• Appendix 6