The 'i' newspaper & 200 others up for grabs - Johnston Press puts itself up for sale.

[cupid_stunt]

Johnston Press, the owner of the 'i' together with 200 regional & local newspapers, has put itself up for sale, due to a debt mountain of £220m being due for repayment next year.

The big question is how likely there will be an offer for the whole group, more likely there's going to be some cherry picking offers from various publishers, that could result in several under-performing titles disappearing, or the whole group could just end-up in administration.

They paid £24m for the 'i' in 2016, and amazingly it has been performing well under their ownership, and is expected to make a profit of £12m this year, so that's a valuable asset, with a potential price tag of £60m.

The Mirror group, now Reach plc, was interested last time around, but was outbid by JP, so are unlikely to want to pay as much as £60m, even if they were allowed too, now that they also own the national Express & Star newspapers.

They own some large regional daily titles such as Yorkshire Post, The Scotsman, Yorkshire Evening Post, Edinburgh Evening News, Portsmouth News, Lancashire Evening Post, The Star (Sheffield) and the News Letter in Belfast, which should survive. But, I can see many of the weekly titles disappearing, another nail in the coffin of the local newspaper industry.

The publisher, which is using Rothschild bank to manage the process, would prefer to sell the business as a whole entity. However, rival publishers and interested parties are likely to focus on its most desirable assets.
Johnston Press, owner of i newspaper, puts itself up for sale

Full company statement - Johnston Press puts itself up for sale - Journalism News from HoldtheFrontPage

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Who actually buys a paper these days?

If I take the 0755 to Waterloo everyone reading news is either reading the Metro, or Times on their ipad. The caff at the station stocks the Sun, Mirror, Telegraph etc. never seen anyone buying one and never notice anyone reading one on the train. Print media's doomed.

 

[Teaboy]

I think there will always be a space for print media but you have to be doing something the others are not, the i being a decent example. I think there will for the foreseeable be the likes of the Times and Sun around and probably the Mail as well. What will die soon are titles like the Star and Express which are only doing a worse version of what already exists.

Fuck knows about local rags, they seem like they are in a downward spiral.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Who actually buys a paper these days?

If I take the 0755 to Waterloo everyone reading news is either reading the Metro, or Times on their ipad. The caff at the station stocks the Sun, Mirror, Telegraph etc. never seen anyone buying one and never notice anyone reading one on the train. Print media's doomed.

Someone must be, although the year-on-year decline in sales continues:

The Sun is down to just under 1.5m a day, down 7.61% y-on-y, and The Mail just over 1.25m, down 12.19% y-on-y.

The Guardian is in trouble at just 138k, down 13.6%, full list of circulations:
National newspaper ABCs: Free Metro tops circulation figures again but Sun still UK's best-selling newspaper + web figures - Press Gazette

 

[editor]

I can't recall the last time I bought a newspaper, but I know that by doing that I'm contributing to the death of good journalism

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Who actually buys a paper these days?

Older people (by which I basically mean my parents) still get them delivered to home, I think that's the main market now.

Why would anyone try and read one on a commuter train - I'd give anyone trying that a seriously passive-aggressive sideways glance these days I can tell you.

 

[editor]

Shitloads of people read that filthy free Tory rag the Evening Standard and its hideous posh lifestyle glossy mag. But that's got little to do with quality journalism.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Shitloads of people read that filthy free Tory rag the Evening Standard and its hideous posh lifestyle glossy mag. But that's got little to do with quality journalism.

'Free' is the key word there isn't it.

To be honest though it's not that common to see someone actually reading the Standard on the tube at rush hour. Most people are looking at phones.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Shitloads of people read that filthy free Tory rag the Evening Standard and its hideous posh lifestyle glossy mag. But that's got little to do with quality journalism.

They average almost 900k copies a day, whilst the Metro manages just under 1.5m, slightly ahead of the Sun, making it the biggest title in the UK.

 

[joustmaster]

They average almost 900k copies a day, whilst the Metro manages just under 1.5m, slightly ahead of the Sun, making it the biggest title in the UK.

how many are left unread or taken home to be used as free cat tray liner?
I'd guess over half.

newspapers are the reserve of the elderly and younger people with flat batteries.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Fuck knows about local rags, they seem like they are in a downward spiral.

Certainly the ones owned by the three big groups, JP, Reach & Newsquest, but there's been some interesting independent hyper-local papers launched over recent years that seem to be doing well.

I can't remember the title, but there was one launched by a former editor of a local JP title, who had been made redundant, and within a year the new title was out selling the JP title, which JP ended-up closing down. As a former JP employee, this made me smile.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I like a Standard, if it's late in the day and I wish to put my feet on the seat opposite I'll place Gidioet's offering down first, cos I'm not a scummer.

 

[Dogsauce]

how many are left unread or taken home to be used as free cat tray liner?
I'd guess over half.

newspapers are the reserve of the elderly and younger people with flat batteries.

No phone reception on the tube. I’d always pick up and read a Standard if someone had left one on the seat, shit as it is. Seemed to always have fairly prominent articles on someone famous getting annoyed at some other rich twat digging a massive basement under the house next door to them in Kensington or wherever, like that’s the sort of thing that most people would relate to. I can only assume they employ trust fund wankers from the top-end of the income scale to pen such risible shit rather than trained journalists.

 

[salem]

The middle third of the standard seems to be property news these days. A week in the life of an estate agent, why you should move Orpington etc. I can't bear to look at it.

 

[Sasaferrato]

I think there will always be a space for print media but you have to be doing something the others are not, the i being a decent example. I think there will for the foreseeable be the likes of the Times and Sun around and probably the Mail as well. What will die soon are titles like the Star and Express which are only doing a worse version of what already exists.

Fuck knows about local rags, they seem like they are in a downward spiral.

I can remember when the Express was a quality paper. (No it wasn't yesterday, or even the day before. )

 

[Sasaferrato]

Shitloads of people read that filthy free Tory rag the Evening Standard and its hideous posh lifestyle glossy mag. But that's got little to do with quality journalism.

I didn't realise the Standard was a free sheet now.

 

[mx wcfc]

I buy the i everyday that I get the train to work. Only 60p, and just about enough to read for the 35 mins on the train. Judging by the letters page it has readers who are a lot less leftie than me, but on the whole it's a decent read, albeit I have read half the stories on the internet the night before. I do the puzzles on the train home if I'm not too pissed. Their cryptic is well beyond my little brain though.There is some great journalism in there too - I'd be "disappointed" it it changed much.

 

[cupid_stunt]

I didn't realise the Standard was a free sheet now.

It ended it's 180 year history as a 'paid-for' title in 2009, and went from loss making to being very profitable, as they more than doubled the circulation, bringing in higher rates for advertising, which more than off set the loss of cover price revenue.

Although more recently it's gone tits-up...

The Evening Standard will post a loss of £10m for the year ending in September 2017, a reversal in fortunes for London's paper that poses a big headache for its owner, Evgeny Lebedev.

The Standard's loss - £9.98m - comes after a recorded profit of £2.2m in the previous year, representing a £12m swing into the red.

Evening Standard to record £10m loss

Sadly it can't be blamed on Osborne taking over as editor.

The losses will inevitably alarm George Osborne, the former chancellor who became editor of the London paper last May.

As the architect of austerity in the Coalition years, he has foes. And as a surprise appointment to the role of editor with virtually no journalistic experience, critics will point to his tenure as an explanation of the losses.

However, pinning the losses on him would betray a certain naivety about the business model of the paper, and timings. Osborne took the editor's chair more than half way through the financial year to which the results pertain.

Moreover, as a free paper the Standard is almost wholly reliant on advertising revenue. It has no cover price. The days when editorial changes could really drive big circulation and cover price growth are long gone - even for those papers that charge readers. For a free paper with fixed distribution, editorial changes don't easily correspond to commercial benefit.

 

[cupid_stunt]

I buy the i everyday that I get the train to work. Only 60p, and just about enough to read for the 35 mins on the train. Judging by the letters page it has readers who are a lot less leftie than me, but on the whole it's a decent read, albeit I have read half the stories on the internet the night before. I do the puzzles on the train home if I'm not too pissed. Their cryptic is well beyond my little brain though.There is some great journalism in there too - I'd be "disappointed" it it changed much.

I always thought the 'i' was a decent read too.

I made two predictions when JP took over, based on them being in deep shit & their policy of cutting resources to the bone & milking their titles.

1 - Standards would drop, which much to my surprise doesn't seem to have happened.

2 - Massive cover price increases, which came true, weekdays from 40p to 60p - a 50% increase in two years, and the weekend edition from 50p to 80p in the same period, with a further leap to £1 last month.

 

[cupid_stunt]

The Daily Mail is planning a bid to buy the 'i', expecting a break-up on Johnston Press, rather than someone buying the whole group, as JP was hoping.

The owner of the Daily Mail is plotting to buy the i in a move that would expand its share of the national newspaper market during a period of turbulence for the UK's biggest publishers‎.

Sky News has learnt that Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) is drawing up plans to make an offer for the i as its current owner, Johnston Press, scrambles to raise cash from a full or partial takeover.

Daily Mail owner plots i bid in Johnston Press break-up

I am hoping they don't get it, but I am not sure what other publishers would be interested, apart from Reach, but as they already have the Mirror, Express & Daily Star, I expect there would be competition issues if they bid.

 

[cupid_stunt]

As no one was interested in buying the whole group, and the offers for various parts didn't add-up to enough, they have gone for the nuclear option...

Johnston Press files for administration - Journalism News from HoldtheFrontPage

 

[cupid_stunt]

I feel so sorry for people I used to work with, that took up the employee share offer, when shares were trading at £5+, recently down to 3-4p, and now totally worthless. That combined with the pension fund fuck-up is going to ruin a lot of people's retirement plans.

 

[hash tag]

My mil has the i delivered daily. At home, we always get a guardian and observer at weekends. They can be a good read and offer more than I care to read online. Also handy to bring in to work when on nights.

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

The slow death of local newspapers is a sad thing. I live in a very small county where very little happens, but the local paper is churned out week in, week out. There's loads of parish-pump and local sport stuff - I reckon everyone in the county probably gets their photo in the paper at least once a year just by existing - but they also dutifully do the drudgery of court reporting, attending council meetings etc

 

[cupid_stunt]

Publisher of i paper details rescue plan

But Custos Group - the largest shareholder in the newspaper group with 25% - says it will try to block its collapse into administration and has accused the company's board of incompetence.

In a statement, Custos chief executive Christen Ager-Hanssen described the move to offload the staff pension scheme as a "disgrace and a vulgar display of the worst elements of capitalism".

Custos, whose shares will soon be worth nothing, insisted the publisher had a reasonable cash flow and was not insolvent.

There was a lot of hope that the 'Viking', as he's nick-named, could come to the rescue, may be he still can, for the sake of the pensioners, and fuck over the lenders instead.

 

[cupid_stunt]

There's been a lot of coverage on the TV news & in the papers about JP going into administration, and within hours sold to JPIMedia, a new company founded by the bond holders, in one of these so-called “pre-pack” deal, meaning they walk away from their pension fund liabilities, it was brought up in parliament yesterday.

I hope the government finds some way around this, and make the buggers pay up.

Veteran MP Frank Field, chairman of the backbench Work and Pensions Select Committee, said it was “difficult to understand” how the new owners had been able to acquire the business without taking responsibility for its pension scheme.

He has now written to Lesley Titcomb, chief executive of the Pensions Regulator, to ask about its involvement in discussions with Johnston Press.

Mr Field, pictured, wrote: “In particular, it would be helpful to have an explanation of why it was not possible to find a solution that would have avoided the pension scheme entering the PPF.

“It is difficult to understand why it is possible for JPIMedia to acquire the business, no doubt in the expectation of generating a profit from it, but without taking any responsibility for its pension scheme.

“Might I ask whether, in the light of this and similar cases, you consider that adequate protections are in place to prevent schemes being dumped on the PPF, at cost to pensioners and levy-payers.”

The PFF has itself voiced “concerns” over the rescue deal and has also raised the issue with the regulator.

Frank Field raises questions over Johnston Press deal - Journalism News from HoldtheFrontPage

From the coverage I saw, I was amazed at the number of MPs blaming the big tech companies/the internet for JP's problems, sure that's had an impact on local newspapers, but that wasn't the main problem with JP.

Their problem was greed, their rapid expansion prior to the financial crash, paying over the odds buying up as many smaller groups are possible, all financed by debt, slashing costs and enjoying profit margins of over 30%, whilst paying massive salaries & bonuses to the board that holed the ship, AKA cunts.

It was that historic debt that tipped JP over the edge, their problems were all of their own making.

 

[Celyn]

Yes, admittedly this sort of clever financial jiggery-pokery is beyond me, but this deal does seem a bit dodgy.

Spot on 're the debt, I think. It has been on the cards for several years that there was a lot of debt, with a collapse to come when JP could no longer service the debt.

 

[Poi E]

It's pretty simple. Get the remuneration committee to tie your bonus to revenue expansion. Since you're a business school generalist and can't really create much, you choose acquisition of companies rather than organic growth. Bingo! Revenue increased, bonus target met, company has loads of debt but look at these shiney new assets we can rebrand.

 

[mx wcfc]

It's pretty simple. Get the remuneration committee to tie your bonus to revenue expansion. Since you're a business school generalist and can't really create much, you choose acquisition of companies rather than organic growth. Bingo! Revenue increased, bonus target met, company has loads of debt but look at these shiney new assets we can rebrand.

Buying businesses with debt that the businesses themselves then have to pay off is the root of many evils. witness pubcos, millions of pounds in debt, screwing otherwise perfectly viable pubs over them selling them for housing.

 

[Poi E]

It's almost as if there's a codified system to permit concentration of capital. Weird, huh?