If Print’s Goal Is To Maintain And Even Increase Circulation Then The Manchester, UK, Evening News Experiment Has Worked, Although Paid-Fors Are Way Down And Free Is Way Up

Philip M. Stone September 3, 2008

ftm has kept a close watch over the past two years as the Manchester, UK Evening News, The UK’s largest regional (metropolitan) newspaper, adopted a bold approach to stem drastically falling circulation by giving away 50,000 issues downtown while maintaining sales in the suburbs. It has certainly added to total circulation but management has yet to give the financial bottom line.

The UK Audit Bureau of Circulation has just, for the first time, included paid and free copies of a newspaper in its official audit numbers and that means the Evening News can boast to its advertisers that it officially has the largest UK regional circulation – 161,545 which is some 20,000 less than the unofficial combined circulation six months ago.  When it started the experiment two years ago paid circulation was at 134,000 so the result two years later is a 20% total circulation increase, but it hasn’t gone the way management had envisaged and circulation revenue has suffered as a consequence.

Before the experiment the Evening News was very much a suburban newspaper with only about 7,000 sales downtown. So, the thinking went, why not sacrifice those 7,000 sales and instead give away 50,000 copies downtown, but still be a paid-for where its circulation was by far the strongest – in the suburbs. All going well, according to the business plan, copies distributed in total would increase to around 180,000 and management was really looking to hit the 200,000 figure for the end of 2007. That never happened.

Six months ago the unofficial audited numbers had the newspaper at a total circulation of 180,900, free circulation at 98,455 and paid-for sales at 82,445. But in the latest official figures the ABC said the total figure now is 161,545, only 77,125 copies being sold in the suburbs at 40 pence each with another 84,420 given away downtown. So what has really happened over the two years is that the newspaper now gives away 60% more copies than it had originally planned and it is sells nearly half as many as before.  

That means the newspaper has lost about half of its circulation revenue, so the question for management is whether the previous 134,000 circulation, all paid, or the current free and paid circulation is more profitable, given probably that ad rates may have increased a bit, but the cost of newsprint is up, too, We know from previous statements that in the first year of the scheme national advertising increased by some 8% but the UK is now in the depths of an economic downturn – it is now forecast that the UK’s economy will be the worst EU performer for the next year – so with the current situation when all the sums are done does increased free circulation plus decreased circulation revenue  equal overall increased revenue or not?  That we haven’t been told.

And those circulation numbers for the past six months are a bit worrying. There are now 14,000 less newspapers being given away, and there are 5,300 less sales. Getting even further away from that magic 200,000.

Mark Rix, managing director of MEN Media, has always made clear he values paid circulation. As the scheme got underway he said, “We acknowledge that these remain challenging times for our industry and we have responded by breaking new ground in how we get the news to people in our area. When we took the bold decision to introduce a part free, part paid Manchester Evening News, we were responding to the needs of readers and advertisers and taking control of our future. We aren’t frightened of facing the circulation decline of the regional press full on and looking for ways to attract new readers, while maintaining our important paid-for readers.” The question, of course, is how many of those 77,125 remaining paid-fors can he hold onto.

With these latest numbers Rix hints that perhaps some of the circulation losses in the past six months may have been strategic. “Rather than just increasing the number of papers we circulate, we look at how the markets wants to receive news and then provide the most appropriate media channels,” he said.

“We have always recognized we need to diversify to stay ahead of the competition. We will continue to look for innovative ways to provide our local communities with the news, information and entertainment they want, in the way they want to receive it, whether through print, broadcast, or online media and we will flex our media offering in the future to ensure that we meet the needs of our readers and advertisers in the most effective way possible,” he amplified.

Founded in 1868, The Evening News in its heyday had a circulation of more than 500,000. Today Manchester is the UK’s eighth largest metropolitan area with a population of some 400,000 and about 250,000 daily commuters.  And Manchester, like cities throughout the UK, has seen for many years now newspaper circulation in continual decline. Editor Paul Horrocks said before the experiment, “We had actually extrapolated our rate of decline and found that by 2025 we wouldn’t have anything left.”

Other newspapers such as the Liverpool Daily Post are adapting to the same model. Its paid-for numbers dropped by some 10% down to 14,266, but uncounted were the 7,000 copies it is giving away downturn so its total 21,000 combined paid-for and free circulation is well up.

Elsewhere, the plight of the BirminghamMail has not improved in spite of its major   effort to focus on local news. The EveningMail knew it had to do something drastic when in both 2004 and 2005 it suffered 10% circulation falls and its circulation fell below the psychologically important 100,000. The paper’s answer  two years ago -- a £1 million relaunch, and to convince its readership this was really now a different animal it went back to the name it gave up in 1967, The Birmingham Mail.

Local news that only used to appear on the inside pages became prominent on the front page. Local offices that had been shut for budget reasons were reopened. Because Birmingham, being the UK’s second largest city, has an extremely diverse population, it increased editions and editorial was focused based on geographically where that particular edition of the paper would circulate. Each edition had a minimum of five local stories.

Owner Trinity Mirror boasted in its news release at the relaunch, “The new ultra local editions are all based on geography to serve widely differing communities across greater Birmingham and the city itself. This follows extensive research among existing and potential readers, who strongly backed a community reporting approach.”

And the result? Yet another example of market research saying one thing and reality saying something else. In this recent ABC The Birmingham Mail sold an average of 66,166, down 7.1 per cent year on year, but only slightly down from the last half of 2007 when the audited number was 67,231. The silver lining in all this, if one stretches to find it, is that the rate of decrease has slowed down dramatically – in 2006 it was more than 17% -- but the dream of pushing circulation back into six figures must surely be gone forever.

Meanwhile Trinity-Mirror, fed up with the poor results at its Midlands properties --The Birmingham Mail, The Birmingham Post (an AM with circulation actually up this year by 0.9% 12,795 but that didn’t  save it from being turned from broadsheet to a business-focused tabloid) , the Sunday Mercury (circulation 59,000) and the Coventry Telegraph (circulation 47,000) -- has now decided to create a single integrated multi-media newsroom in Birmingham, telling all 300 editorial staff they have to reapply for their jobs and 65 will lose out.

There is increasing evidence in Europe and with Metro in the US that free newspapers are not the amazing panacea that publishers thought they would be, and many are disappearing. Maybe Manchester has found the right formula -- be free and be paid-for. It’s a tough balancing job to get right but it seems to work.