News reaches How-Do that plans are well advanced for a new weekly business newspaper and web site targeting the broader Manchester conurbation.
The consortium behind the publishing venture is believed to be close to securing between £3m to £5m and has longer term plans to roll the concept out to other UK cities.
It is also believed that the backers may include primarily overseas investors although the principals involved have strong regional connections.
It is anticipated that confirmation of the plans will be announced over the summer.
North West Enquirer
The last newspaper start up in the region, the North West Enquirer, which launched in April 2006, raised circa £850,000, substantially less than its £1.3m funding target.
Based in Manchester, the weekly paper had set itself a weekly sale of between 12,000 to 15,000 but circulation over the summer of 2006 dropped to between 8,000 to 9,000 paid copies albeit with a growing number of free copies distributed via third parties.
The paper went into administration on 19 September 2006.
It is believed that the new, as yet unnamed venture, will invest substantially in content - for the paper and the web site – and in distribution.
Mark Dickinson, business development director of Trinity’s North West operations said he wished the new venture well adding that “certainly print isn’t dead. There’s plenty of life yet in print products in all sorts of guises, particularly when allied with digital products.”
His colleague Bill Gleeson, business editor of the Daily Post said: “It’s an unproven market but I’d guess a number of business and professional folk in Manchester would welcome its arrival – should it happen!”
Martin Regan, editorial director of Manchester’s largest independent business publishing company, Excel, publisher of EN magazine, was surprised and intrigued by the news.
“I don’t think there’s sufficient volume or quality of business news to justify such an undertaking. The North West, and Manchester in particular, is a big economy but is it big enough to differentiate itself from the nationals and their business coverage?
“If something like the Enquirer last year with such good business coverage (circa 12 pages an issue) failed, then why should this succeed?”
Research and deep pockets required
Andy Jeal
Andy Jeal, managing partner at Mediavest Manchester, the city’s biggest media buying agency, sincerely hopes the company “has done its research well and has deep pockets.”
It can be done he says and points to the Yorkshire Post which is “a fantastic example of a regional business newspaper which is extremely profitable.”
However he added that the YP has a long history and tradition and a strong county identity whereas “I’m not convinced other businesspeople really want regional news.”
Jeal sees advertising and circulation revenue as key to the venture’s success. He is also quizzical about overseas experiences being replicated here in the UK. “In both the US and continental Europe” says Jeal “local media is much more parochial, much more regional in outlook than our big city papers.”
Having said that, Jeal says if it does happen and can succeed, the city will undoubtedly benefit.
Dougal Paver, MD of PR agency Paver Smith said he’d love “to see the business plan that has prompted and justified this initiative.
Scoops and hard news stories
“It will need to be different” he stresses. “It will need to attract and maintain attention. Ultimately it will be about the quality of journalism and the number of scoops and hard news stories it can beat the competition to.
“From our point of view, the more competition the better. Bring it on – I wish it well.”
North West Evening Mail editor, Steve Brauner, has a rare perspective on business journalism in the region. He has edited the monthly business title Insider and was formerly business editor and assistant editor of the Daily Post.
“It’s a brave person” he says “who launches anything at this particular time, essentially a new product in an untested market.”
He also believes the US and mainland European markets have more devolved public sector administrations which, in his view, results in local politics and business interests being more closely aligned with each other than here in the UK, where local and regional government does not carry the same clout.
It can be done
Gleeson, however, says he can only speak as he finds. “A weekly will find no problem whatsoever getting a sufficient volume of stories. We publish a big weekly business section here in Liverpool and don’t forget the Manchester advertising market is much bigger. We’re doing well so it can be done. Good luck to them.”
News of this potential launch comes a few days after City AM, the London daily freesheet targeting the City, announced it has indefinitely postponed plans to roll out regional editions in the UK. It claims it is doing so well in London, where distribution is now in excess of 100,000 copies a day, that regional editions could ‘dilute the brand’.
City AM’s target readership is financial rather corporate and the publishers feel that the largest regional cities service corporate rather than financial markets.
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