Newsagents should read page 39 on The Australian Financial Review today. It is a full page article about the changes in distribution of newspapers. The article starts with a report on the events at the NANA awards dinner on July 4, something I covered here the day after. It covers the challenges of newspaper distribution and newsagency management.
I spoke to Will Glasgow, the journalist at the AFR, for more than an hour over several calls. It was terrific to hear someone keen to get to the bottom of such a complex issue which had its roots more than one hundred years ago.
There is plenty which space has not permitted covering in the AFR article which was covered in discussions including…
- The proper time for compensating newsagents for the restructuring of distribution territories was 1999 when newsagents were so poorly represented through deregulation.
- The state associations have failed to deliver appropriate leadership to newsagents for years on the issue of newspaper distribution.
- Many newsagents are not surprised by the News announcement of redrawing of territories.
- Plenty of newsagents have restructured ahead of expected changes, merging territories and building large and viable distribution hub businesses. You;re more likely to see this in Victoria.
- The magazine distribution model continues to fail newsagents. Deregulation facilitated competitors accessing magazines on terms which are considerably fairer than terms given to newsagents.
Newspaper distribution changes are but one of several structural changes impacting newsagents today. Ignorance is not an excuse. The more in our channel who realise that their future in business is solely up to them the better.
Years ago I used waves as an analogy in discussing the changes newsagents face – waves we could see and the freak wave we could not see but knew could happen. I explained that we need to become expert surfers, riding on top of the waves of change. This is true today more than ever even if the waves are more obvious.
Good article. I wonder if there are in fact over half of the 4000 Newsagents as members of the ANF. If true then I would find that remarkable.
I was disappointed that the article didn’t mention that there are newsagents who do make a profit from distribution.
We are worried because we have a profitable distribution area. However the changes in the contracts may have us deliver for less commission than we receive now.
We are efficient and viable now, but because we are viable, we may be punished for it.
And for anyone wanting a piece of the action, it’s dog eat dog – we will be forced to tender against each other.
I thought it was good to see the time line of a typical newsagents day, to show the long hours that we all do.
hopefully this coverage continues in the weeks to come
Is that Mr Bean on the far right (our left) of Julia on front page?
I thought that highlighting the newsagent
who made offensive remarks just made
us all collectively look pretty low class.
I’m sure the article could have portrayed
us as hardworking, reliable PROFESSIONAL
people.
A bit disappointing although good to see
a full page on our dilemma.
I think it is only fair to say that print media themselves have their own dilemma so we are not alone here albeit the reporters and printers etc are EMPLOYED
by the various papers and they don’t
have their life savings at risk as do we newsagents’
June – good comment. The newsagent at the dinner sounded like a bit of child with his studentish antics. It’s probable a sign of the times that the better newsagents aren’t bothering to go to association events.
Mind you though Jerry Harris was also somewhat out of order for making the announcement where he did and how he did. We deserved more respect than that.
Mel is right also there are a lot of us who are making a quid out of distribution. Our issue is that distribution is so time intensive that it is a distraction that dilutes our focus on retail. Even without the so called changes to the industry we’ll be splnning our distribution off and learning to collaborate with our neighbours. Our goal is not to lose distribution profits but in paralell improve our retail profits/
K Mc, News had briefed the state associations about this. They did not make a new announcement at the dinner.
Mark, from a Victorian perspective the information before the NANA dinner had referred to voluntary territory alignments. Jerry Harris’s said at the NANA dinner that News Ltd would define the territories. This part had not been heard before. It is interesting to note that the language has been significantly softened in subsequent letters from the desk of Cathrin Thomas.
Kate I think the problem is with what the associations published to members. News should have spoken direct to the channel about this as far back as two years ago. I don’t think their plans have changed that much in two years in this area.
Mark I looked at the Youtube spot from NANA . It is very clearly and professionally presented.
The key difference between this and Jerry Harris’s comments is that he announced that territory definition will be determined by News Ltd whereas NANA stated voluntary territory amalgamations will be approved up until mid 2013.
It’s all being said here and there, in bits & pieces, but no one is holistically clarifying the situation in one place at one time.