Media
Still losing money after all these years
Published 26 March 2007
Profit is everything to Rupert Murdoch, and yet, after more than a quarter of a century, he still can't get the Times into the black. The man has just turned 76; what is he waiting for?
These are grim days on the street of shame, especially for journalists on what Kelvin MacKenzie used to call the "unpopular" newspapers. The Independent is shedding 40 staff through voluntary redundancies and the Guardian is also planning a cull. This comes only months after the Telegraph cut 54 journalists' jobs, and before that the Financial Times got rid of 50 staff.
It is what you expect in a market in long-term decline. Enthusiasts keep telling us there is plenty of life in the newspaper, but surely no one can look at the circulation charts in the Press Gazette, the trade magazine, without hearing the distant sound of a death knell. The "ups" appear in green on these charts and the "downs" in red, with a swingometer effect to show the strongest movements - and month after month there are only great splurges of red.
All the nationals are affected, but the qualities have to be most alarmed, as they are so expensive to produce. Yet there is one odd feature in this depressing picture, and that is the position of Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Times.
Look at his paper. It may not be bucking the general circulation trend but it shows every outward sign of being in rude and confident good health. It is chubby to the point where there is almost too much of it; it has a smart design that suits the tabloid format; its news judgement has become surer, so that it seems less inclined to ape the Mail and the Telegraph, and its standard of presentation is higher.
The turmoil of the transition to tabloid - for readers and staff - appears all but forgotten, while the printing presses are being upgraded and the website has had a £10m overhaul. The editor, Robert Thomson, speaks of his paper reaching more readers than ever in its 220-year history.
For all that, however, the Times does not make money; in fact (although the picture is unclear because the accounts are not separate from those of the Sunday Times), it is losing very large sums. According to figures reported last month, Times Newspapers made an operating loss of nearly £47m in 2005-2006, and given that the Sunday title is generally assumed to be in profit, it follows that the daily Times is a money hole.
In a way, there is nothing remarkable about this, because the Times has been losing money for its proprietors almost literally since Lloyd George was a lad. What makes it so interesting is that Murdoch isn't supposed to be like other proprietors.
He is no rich dilettante, no ego-freak and no political wannabe, but the greatest newspaperman since Northcliffe. Even his critics admit he combines great technical insight with fine journalistic instincts and a shrewd eye for talent. But what really marks him out is his ruthless pursuit of profit.
Murdoch is not in it for power or propaganda. Though some believe he meddles in politics to promote a right-wing agenda, it fits the facts much better to see him as using politicians to create the business climate he wants. Profit is all, and where his businesses lose money - such as at Sky Television in its early days or on his London freesheet today - it is only because he has a plan to make even bigger profits in the future.
So the Times is a great anomaly. He has owned it for 26 years and the point where he could talk of a loss leader has long passed, yet he is prepared to fund losses that may be running at £1m a week.
Does he know something we don't? It could be that he sees the Times as a global brand waiting to happen on the internet. But if that is so, why all the investment in print? Maybe he sees the Times surviving the coming squeeze while other titles go under, though such a triumph would surely be both Pyrrhic and short-lived. In any case, the man has just turned 76: how much longer can he wait?
Perhaps we shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Murdoch is spending a great deal of his hard-earned cash preserving a British institution. If it was anybody else, we might be thanking him.
Let dog eat dog
In the press, when something happens twice it is never a mere coincidence but always a trend, justifying a whole cycle of opinion articles, for, against and otherwise.
Just such a trend has appeared among columnists themselves. In the space of a few days, we had Simon Jenkins taking a swing at the Guardian, in the Guardian, about an advertorial supplement he disagreed with, and Alice Miles mocking journalists on the Times, in the Times, for their antediluvian views on nuclear weapons.
Let's have more of this. I want to see Jeff Randall turning his thunderous fire on the Barclay brothers in their own Telegraph, and Jon Gaunt in the Sun denouncing those daft quotes his paper always attributes to page-three models. (Do we really believe that Katie Downes, 22, from Liverpool, came up with the line that Freddie Flintoff "should hit the balls not the ales"?) And what does Julian Clary think of Martin Bright? We should be told.
Brian Cathcart is professor of journalism at Kingston University
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