How Sunday Herald editor plans to win back readers as sales fall 21%
As sales for the new-look Sunday Herald fall by 21% for February this year to February 2010, editor Richard Walker says he is confident the paper can survive.
Speaking following today’s release of the latest ABC figures recordinga decline in the newspaper’s circulation figures from 42, 542 over the last 12 months to 40,552 between August 2010 and February 2011, Walker defended his paper, pointing out that the widespread newspaper industry had declined, including rival Scotland on Sunday.
However, the year on year comparison for February show a more marked downturn. In 2010 the paper recorded sales of 41,796 for the month. However, in February 2011 the sale was 32,936 a decline of 21%.
The newspaper launched a new magazine format for the quality Sunday title in January, which has divided opinion, moving from a multisection, pull-out format, to a magazine format with two sections of news and features.
“It’s not good that we have lost that number of readers. It’s not a death blow, and it is something we will be addressing in the coming weeks to try and win those readers back and reach those who have not yet read the new Sunday Herald,” commented Walker.
He explained that the decision to move to the magazine format, with a news section and a features section was taken because the previous product was losing money and was ‘not sustainable’.
“We had to put ourselves on a solid financial footing. Following discussions the magazine idea emerged and it seemed to us to provide something of an exciting opportunity so we could hopefully create something new and exciting rather than just cutting back, commented Walker, who added that it was still ‘early days’ for the product.
“There’s no doubt that some of the readers don’t like it and there’s also no doubt that the most commonly voiced criticism of those who don’t like it is that there are no sections and you can’t share it. Not the content, not various aspects of it, but the fact that you can’t share it.”
Walker said that he was planning on addressing the criticism of the newspaper, and that there would be continued ‘tweaks’ over time, such as introducing more news as was the case within the most recent edition. He did, however rule out the return of a seven-day TV listing, citing pagination as being unable to host such content.
“It’s not as though our readers have left us to go to the Scotland on Sunday,” highlight Walker, with the East coast Sunday quality title also seeing a decline in circulation.
He added that there was no plan to change the cover price of £1.30 either.
“Scotland on Sunday’s campaign is two-fold. What they are doing is competing with us, and healthy competition is fine, but also there are some suggestions that they are involved in a fight-to-the-death, which is a bit of a crazy situation. I’m not sure why anybody would want to drive another Scottish newspaper out of business, particularly when there is no evidence that they would pick up readers.”
He continued to highlight that the circulation of Scotland on Sunday had also declined despite cutting its price to £1 per issue and using TV advertising.
“I think it would be a false conclusion to think that if we close, which we are not going to do, they will pick up all our readers. Where is the evidence of that? It is in Scotland’s interest for it to have two quality indigenous titles fighting it out for readers. That competition makes both papers better, but I don’t think it should be regarded by either side as some sort of macho fight to the death.”
Asked whether the decline may have been due to content being placed online, Walker dismissed the notion, saying: “We don’t put all our content online, and there are a lot of factors in that decision, one being that it obviously costs us money to produce that content and we can’t really afford to give it away for nothing.”
He also denied that the news coming out of the company of strike action and job losses would have turned readers away.
“I can’t see that, it certainly features nowhere in the feedback that I get from readers. Every newspaper company has had job losses and a lot of companies have had job losses in all sectors. I don’t think it would come as a surprise to anybody that we have had to adapt to the economic circumstances that we find ourselves in.”
Defending the quality of the new format Sunday Herald, Walker continued: “I am confident that the quality of the product would please readers. There are readers that we have not yet got to, but if they were to try us they would like us. It’s not really a traditional newspaper and therefore we are not going to appeal to people who do not read traditional newspaper readers or who have stopped buying Sunday newspapers…it’s our responsibility to get to those people.”
New attempts to engage with the readers will also be used to engage with new-and-old readers, similar to the recent Twitter discussion between Walker and Scotland on Sunday editor-in-chief John McLellan.
Addressing concerns from the National Union of Journalists that the decline in sales could lead to further job losses, he was unable to make any promises, but added that 'heavy investment' would continue to be put into the paper.
“It’s difficult to give any guarantees anywhere,” responded Walker. “When we launched this, everyone in the building was fantastic. Every single aspect of the building pulled together to make sure the first issue was as successful as it could have been. That included the journalists, who were threatening to strike, which the journalists themselves decided not go ahead with largely because they wanted the Sunday Herald launch to be successful. There is a huge amount of support from this company for this product and that will continue.”