New newspaper distribution contracts from News Limited?
Distribution newsagents are talking about the imminent new contracts from News Limited. There is plenty of speculation in the marketplace including rumours that News is not negotiating the contracts centrally through the ANF and that the contracts will be for one year only.
I don’t have any inside information about the new contracts.
What I do know is that while some newsagents make good money from home delivery, many do not. The inability to charge a price based on the costs of delivering the service stops home delivery being a business.
The drop in real terms of the fee permitted by the newspaper publishers over the last fifteen years is what has caused hundreds of newsagents to walk away from their newspaper home delivery businesses.
While I am on the record saying that newsagents should not enter into new contracts, I appreciate that many will because they want security and because a contract is crucial to their business funding.
At minimum, a contract must provide the newsagent with fair levers which they can use to act as business people in the twenty-first century as opposed to indentured servants from yesteryear.
The future of the current newspaper home delivery model will be decided over the next year. Newsagents who want to remain in the home delivery business must fight for their rights.
While I sold off the home delivery side of my newsagency three years ago, My software company, Tower Systems, serves in excess of 1,500 newsagents, many of whom have home delivery businesses. I care about the health of the newsagency and am committed to helping where I can to achieve a more equitable outcome from newspaper home delivery.