Following the story in yesterday’s Australian Financial Review, I was interviewed by Adam Spencer on ABC 702 in Sydney at 6:40am and on 2UE by Michael Smith at 1:20pm.  Both interviews picked up on the opportunities of change for newsagents and connected with the vital importance of newsagencies in local communities.  They talked up the retail channel – as did the article if you read the whole piece.

I loved being able to get the message out that newsagents beat Harvey Norman, Big W, Australia Post and Dick Smith on price!

I received calls from several newsagents late yesterday who had heard one or the other of the interviews.  But they rang more in response to some of the comments to yesterday’s blog post.

Publicity for the newsagency channel like we saw yesterday is good.  It pitches our businesses as important and relevant to the community and moving with the times.  This is vital if we are to be seen by shoppers as relevant.  The last thing we need is to be though of as out of date retailers as retailers seen that way are soon forgotten.

Rob Hunt from nextra called several newsagencies that I know of yesterday, talking down the AFR story, trying to scare people.  From what I have heard, Rob offered nothing positive, no pathway to a brighter future, no suggestions on how to deal with changes we already see.  He seemed only concerned about being negative.

The debate between newsagents about what to discuss publicly and what to keep to ourselves about our future as a channel is not a useful debate.  It will not help us navigate to a future.  Our future is in the public domain in a range of ways including audit and other publicly released data.

We need to be publicly realistic about what is happening.  But more important than that, we need to be publicly opportunistic.

There are not enough people and organisations serving newsagents who are prepared to pursue a bright future beyond what we know today.  Too many prefer to oppose for the sake of opposition.  Or they oppose to try and take focus on the smart move by a competitor.  These NoNos, the people who complain and criticise without working on a plan for the future, are wasting the attention of good newsagents.  They ought to create a plan themselves and show that they can do more than just complain and criticise.

It is natural that Rob Hunt of nextra would complain about the AFR article given that a key feature was the growth in sales reported for newsXpress stores and the coverage of the national TV campaign announced by the group.

A better response from Rob Hunt would have been an announcement about a TV or some other equally valuable and national campaign for nextra newsagents.

Our channel will be well served by multiple positive, strong and future focused newsagency marketing groups.  This would play a valuable role in strengthening the newsagency offer.

I also heard late yesterday that a bank representative pointed to the article to justify their lending approach on newsagencies.  Hmm, yes, it makes sense that a bank used an article in July 2011 to justify a policy change from early 2010 (or before). Not!  Banks take into account many factors when considering lending proposals.  The P&L of a business is paramount.  The future opportunity of the channel in which the business is also a factor.  This is where the AFR article had plenty of good news.

Finally, I’d note that the price people buying a newsagency for is a factor of the P&L and the perceived opportunity.  This is why we must, every day, drive P&L value and pursue opportunities in our businesses.  Energy invested in these areas will increase the value we achieve when we sell.