The British Newspaper Industry : The Future of the Regional Press

It is never very obvious to spectators of the newspaper business just why it is that the industry has suffered so badly in recent years. Most ascribe the reasons to the arrival of the Internet in all its forms when, in truth, most of its problems were created by the newspaper managements themselves, either by weak management in the control of its environment, by a serious lack of foresight in looking to the future, or by assuming that change, if it were to come, would be at the slow pace of past change. The magisterial attitudes of most newspaper managements served to engender a growing resentment particularly among the advertisers who were forced to pay increased rates to enable the cover prices of the publications to be held down. The British Newspaper Industry sets out to distinguish the newspaper industry from the generality of single product organisations and to provide tailored solutions to its problems by drawing on a variety of techniques and practices successfully used in other industries. Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction....Pages 1-6 The Persistence of a Local Press: A Folk Memory?....Pages 7-10 Communities and Their Media....Pages 11-22 Communities: What They are....Pages 23-30 The History of a Crisis: Internal Factors....Pages 31-40 The History of a Crisis: External Factors....Pages 41-51 The Present State of Play....Pages 52-68 Newspapers in Decline....Pages 69-79 The Growth of Alternative Media....Pages 80-90 Anticipating the Future....Pages 91-102 Transitioning to a New Order....Pages 103-112 Generic Strategies....Pages 113-124 Strategies for a Turbulent Future?....Pages 125-139 The Mechanisms of Local Media....Pages 140-148 Newspaper Production....Pages 149-152 Digital Printing....Pages 153-161 Marketing Advertisement Space....Pages 162-169 Marketing the Product....Pages 170-177 Resource Partitioning....Pages 178-189 Value Activities....Pages 190-197 The Current State of Play....Pages 198-209 The Endgame?....Pages 210-222 Back Matter....Pages 223-241