News Limited swings punches at Fairfax

The Media pages of The Australian yesterday led with Fairfax shortens print timetable, a report claiming that Fairfax insiders leaked that the timetable of retreat from print had been shortened. Fairfax management yesterday denied the report.

This report is the type of punch that News Limited swings at their biggest competitor, Fairfax. The frequency of punches has increased recently. That the news report is freely available and not locked behind a subscriber log in says that News wants this story to reach as many eyeballs as possible. Other reports from The Australian yesterday remain hidden behind a subscription login.

It would suit News if Fairfax did make a move on the print days for its capital city dailies so its understandable that then company uses its newspapers to further its own agenda. It’s something News has done for years.

The challenge for Fairfax is that the scope of the turnaround being attempted is enormous and the diversity of the company quite narrow, requiring the benefits of the turnaround to come from diminished operations.  The company under Greg Hywood has aggressively cut costs and paid down debt, all good moves from a financial strength perspective. The unknown is where the company will end up and from a newspaper perspective, where print will end up.

The real issue for the future of the print editions is to create products people want to purchase in the printed form.  Print sales will determine when the print editions are cut as Hywood has said.  If I was in control of the print product I’d take a fresh, left field, look at the content. I’d be looking for ways to make the print product more locally relevant. It’s rare I reach for a newspaper for news. I do, however, reach for a newspaper for perspective and longer form reporting. The challenge is that as I think about that it’s obvious that such content does not need to be and probably cannot be daily.