Our Business
Johnston Press serves the local media needs of numerous communities in the UK and Ireland. We aim to be, and in the vast majority of cases are, the principal source of local news, information, entertainment and comment in those communities.
We currently provide our services through 18 daily newspapers, 245 weekly newspapers and a huge range of related specialist, locally focussed, print publications. We operate 273 local websites to extend the content and reach of our print products. Together these reach a combined audience of about 17.4 million readers each month, often providing unique local content.
The development and maintenance of our audience is extremely important. In 2010 we continued the focus on our printed products, their circulation, and improving the quality of our products. Our editorial review process which aims to improve our print products by ensuring that our newspapers focus on the need of their local communities through a combination of customer research and peer review. This has ensured that our products remain sharp and continue to serve their communities. Maintaining audience both in print and online is a key part of our overall strategy and in this regard further steps have been taken to ensure our newspapers and websites meet the needs of our readers and viewers. To ensure this is the case, over 100,000 people are actively engaged in providing consumer feedback on our various products. This includes 12,000 reader panellists who respond to questionnaires and give views on product additions and changes, and 14,000 readers who work with our in-house research team giving feedback alongside editors and senior journalists as part of our newspaper product evaluation process. This work has been supported by a move towards retaining newspaper readers by offering incentives for long-term subscription to our newspapers. Every publisher has a reader retention plan in place which encourages payment by direct debit for 12 month contracts.
During 2010 we completed a major project to create a single view of content within one Group-wide Content Management System which can be used for multiple platforms such as the newspaper, the internet and mobile.
At the same time a project commenced to re-launch the Group’s news websites with almost all of the sites being upgraded to a new design. An important aim is achieved with this switch in that all originated content is now created in a fully searchable format. This will enable the Group to develop further commercial opportunities such as matching relevant advertisers to online stories and timely creation of niche products while ensuring that publishing centres are ready for developments in emerging technologies such as smart phones, portable tablet devices and iPads. In keeping with the approach to continue to grow digital revenues by partnering with key providers, agreement was reached with Qype, a leading online directory business based across Europe, to provide a business directory platform integrated into the new websites.
This will greatly improve the business listing service currently on offer and enhance interaction with our audience, particularly with the ability to review services. This is expected to increase the Group’s revenue for business listings in 2011.
During 2010 the Group also launched an iPhone application for The Scotsman which was the first Scottish-based iPhone news service of its kind. To date, over 5,000 users have downloaded the application.
We operate central units for transport and logistics, newspaper sales and advertisement creation. In addition, regional teams have been established for editorial production, enabling common business processes to be employed and best practice adopted. In addition to the work undertaken to improve our digital performance, the IT function has been preparing the Group’s infrastructure to ensure its sales function has a single customer view and at the point of contact the sales person has the most up to date information available. This is a long-term project involving over 2,000 sales staff and it is unlikely to be completed until late 2012, though some benefits have already been derived from a trial project to centralise telephone sales activities further. This trial, which demonstrated that improved technology created efficiencies and increased sales opportunities, is being used as a framework for planning telephone sales resource going forward.
In 2010 the print division was renamed as the services division to reflect the growing range of services it provides to the publishing companies, which now include pre-press, transport & logistics, page planning and health and safety.
In the more traditional area of print services, further steps were taken to improve efficiency by moving to one print centre in Ireland and closing the Limerick plant, changing shift patterns at Peterborough and realigning management to reflect this reduced capacity. New contracts were secured to print the Grimsby Evening Telegraph and Hull Daily Mail, and the division was again recognised by the industry for its printing standard.
The expanded services division has made substantial progress in consolidating the disparate activities associated with newspaper production, and resulted in savings of over £1.7 million in 2010. This process will also lead to further efficiencies and improvements to service levels, particularly in the area of advertisement creation where self serve and automated processes will provide more timely and higher quality solutions.
The central newspaper sales team provides research, marketing and administration support in addition to sharing and monitoring best practice.
Our relationships with advertisers remain key and extensive work on our advertising platforms was also carried out during 2010. Improvements for customers include an extension to our online service for births, marriages and deaths (with i-Announce), agreed in early 2011; upgraded technology for video advertising; and packages for both local and national display advertisers that better meet their needs and extend their reach.
As a result of our initiatives sales performance improved during the year with weekly titles 0.6% better in the second half of the year at –4.4% and daily newspapers 7.8% down. Encouragingly, nine of our weekly newspapers recorded an increased sales performance year-on-year including the Hastings Observer and the Worthing and Shoreham Herald. The performance of our daily titles in the second half of the year was disappointing. However, 6 of our 18 daily titles performed above the industry average including the Scarborough Evening News and the Belfast Newsletter, both of which were in the top 20 performances for the period in the market.
Digital audiences continued to grow with unique users up 3.0% on 2009 to an average of 7.1 million per month.
We took the decision in 2010 to expand our events and exhibitions businesses. Using the experience of the Company’s established emigration exhibition business, the Group launched five new shows across its publishing portfolio. These larger exhibitions were part of a trial to determine if significant new revenue could be achieved alongside the already successful smaller shows operated by our publishing centres. These successfully attracted national advertisers and exhibitors and demonstrated that events of this scale can be staged. Other events were also successfully delivered across the Group including the Magic of Christmas held in Northern Ireland, the South of England and the North of England.
Our two main print sites, Dinnington and Portsmouth provide the flexibility to undertake a great range of print requirements including smaller titles with shorter print run papers. This has allowed print operations across our group to function more efficiently.