Want To Sell More Newspapers In The UK? It’s Not The Journalism, Stupid, It’s The Free DVD, Cheap Holidays, And Discount Dining

It says little for the health of the UK nationals that those expensive giveaways – depending on circulation a newspaper won’t see much change from £250,000 for its “free” DVD -- are so responsible for getting those additional readers. Today’s reality is that newspapers are relying more and more on what marketing can dream up and those newspapers with the biggest promotional budget, or the smartest ideas, are likely to stay ahead. For a nation that has long prided itself on a grand journalistic tradition the credo is now: It’s Not The Journalism, Stupid, It’s the DVD, Cheap Holidays and Discount Dining.

Just take a look at what happened in the quality sector of the Sunday market in January, a month that is usually better than December when people slack off their reading with the Christmas holidays.

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The Sunday Times, the UK’s leading Sunday circulation newspaper, needed to get its circulation back up after a reader revolt following its price increase in September to £2. It had raised its price by 25% in two steps last year – a 20p increase in February and another in September, putting it at the previously unscaled £2 and while there was little reaction to the first increase the second was an increase too far. From a circulation of 1.35 million before the September increase its circulation sank by more than 100,000 come December. Its circulation had not dropped below 1.3 million in seven years; something had to be done!

So January saw marketing get involved with a vengeance to really get those numbers up. On successive Sundays there was a free DVD to test your intelligence, another free DVD to test your baby’s intelligence, a free travel DVD hosted by celebrity Michael Palin, and it ran an “eat out for £10” promotion.

Result: mixed. Its audited January number climbed a very respectable 6.25% (a 75,000 increase) but any thought the number would go back over that important 1.3 million mark was well and truly dashed with circulation sitting at 1,288,421, down 5.06% from a year earlier and the fourth month it was below 1.3 million. At least it didn’t go below 1.2 million! Those promotions must have cost near £1 million, so was getting back 75,000 readers worth the expense? Only the accountants will truly know. And, of course, the real question is whether those 75,000 will remain without as much February promotion.

The Sunday Telegraph, the closest competitor to the Sunday Times in the “quality” sector, also got heavily involved in promotions. It gave away a Beatrix Potter CD, a puzzle book, “an eat out for £5” offer, and a two for one health treatment promotion.

Result: considering all the promotion the numbers were up a modest 2.52% bringing the total to 659,841, an increase of 16,249 copies, but still down on the year by 3.35%. Doubtful it really got its promotional money’s worth.

The Independent on Sunday with the lowest circulation of the Sunday quality papers had, percentage wise, the best month, seeing a 24.62% increase over December, but with that its circulation is still just 247,829, but at least a positive 2.66% increase over the year before. And, yes it, too, got heavy into promotions with a test your brain CD, A birdsong CD, and a birds postcard (remember, the British are crazy about their birds!) so in the promotions war maybe the IOS chose the best subjects to give away.

And then there is the Observer, sitting in circulation between the Sunday Telegraph and the IOS. It did not run any January promotions: Result: It got the expected 1.95% bump over the weak December -- nothing special. But what must be a major disappointment is that since January, 2006, when it got a 21% bump from its move to Berliner size, it has lost almost all of that increase during the year and compared to January, 2006, it is off 18.06% -- down by 97,889 copies to 444,186. Perhaps a more accurate comparison is with December, 2005, when circulation stood in that slow month at 430,403.

That brings up the question of why those who “tasted” the new Berliner didn’t stick around and considering what it cost to switch from broadsheet was the investment worth it or would that money have been better spent on promotions?

Promotions do work on the day, they do get the numbers up, but do those numbers stick? The Sunday Times is part of Rupert Murdoch’s News International and the press baron in an interview in November, 2005, with the UK’s Press Gazette trade publication had very little good to say about the giveaways.

“I personally hate this DVD craze. The fact is the sales go up for a day, and are right back to where they were the following day. The most recent example of that is The Sunday Telegraph when they tried to relaunch two weeks ago. And they had a great sale - up 190,000 or 200,000. And the following Sunday they were back exactly where they were two weeks before. People grab it, tear the DVD off and throw away the paper. They've got to learn. That's got to stop."

But even though the boss doesn’t like it there seems to be some independence at News International, and the group is still about the biggest purveyor of the free DVD. The tabloid Sun that had a dismal 2006 added more than 200,000 copies in January boosted by a series of DVDs based on TV shows plus a £9.50 vacation promotion. January was 6.24% ahead of December but even with that jump on the 12-month period it was still down 3.06%.

Nowhere in any of that were there any journalistic exclusives that caused people to buy one paper over the other. It’s almost entirely the promotions, and the advertising those promotions get on television, that seem to decide whether a newspaper holds or loses circulation these days.

Most newspapers seem to have their hardcore readers, but there are enough fickle ones out there who will buy based on what is being given away and thus the up and downs based on promotions.

Here’s an idea – instead of spending all of that money on promotions that do not earn circulation loyalty how about spending some of it where it could do some good – on getting the right editorial product. Certainly there is enough verbiage out there – indeed the papers seem to get thicker all the time – but is it the right verbiage?

There was an important lesson to learn from their World Cup coverage that the UK papers seem to have ignored. England had a so-so tournament and there was an awful lot of England bashing in the newspapers. Lo and behold the newspapers did not get the big bump they expected from sending their armies to Germany to cover the team in such detail. Les Hinton, executive chairman of News International, had boasted shortly before the tournament that the Sun would bump up 12% but he ended up selling 82,000 fewer copies in June than he did in June a year earlier – a drop of 2.54% with average June sales of 3,148,700, down 329 from May.

Could it just possibly be that all those stories bashing the team were not the stories the public wanted to read. It makes one really question whether newspapers have lost touch with what their readers want – do they really want all the bashing or do they just want to be informed on what goes on in “their” world; do they really care about all of those expensive columnists who few know who write on subjects even fewer care about, or could that money be put to better editorial use?

Money spent on giving the readers what they really want rather than so much going on short-life promotions will surely go a lot further in the long-run than the one-day fixes.