'Independent likely to close by Christmas': 2nd biggest shareholder

[muriel_volestrangler]

Independent News & Media is likely to close its flagship London title The Independent by Christmas, the publishing group's second biggest shareholder Denis O'Brien said on Friday.

"There's no point in us as a company subsidising a newspaper that really nobody wants to read in the United Kingdom," O'Brien told Bloomberg TV in an interview on the sidelines of the Global Irish Economic Forum.

"It's not a relevant newspaper anymore and this newspaper's going to be closed by Christmas,"said O'Brien, who has been at odds with the company's board over plans to refinance a 200-million-euro debt issue that was meant to be paid in May.
...
INM's board on Tuesday criticised O'Brien's request for an investor meeting over the refinancing plans, saying his "personal antagonism" towards management would damage its trading prospects, staff morale and reputation.

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUSLI32052720090918?sp=true

[oldironside]

1. Well, it's a shame,

but it has definitely been dumbing down lately - pointless showbiz stories, using tabloid language in their reports. Obviously an attempt to try and attract readers from the lower end of the market that obviously failed.

Swings and roundabouts. It means the intelligent leftie is only going to be left with the Grauniad. Still, at least Bruce Anderson will be reduced to fulminating loudly in the corner of his local's saloon bar. And those freepers who've been clogging up the comments with their masterly insights will have to find somewhere else to go.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. I wonder what this means for the future of The Observer

There's been plenty of stories about the Guardian Media Group planning to close that, and make The Guardian a 7 day-a-week paper; would this change their mind at all?

I have a soft spot for The Independent - it's one of the few British papers to have quoted DU, and the only one to have quoted me: :evilgrin:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=191&topic_id=21536

[oldironside]

3. The Independent was always a sort of refuge for me

whenever the Grauniad got too pretentious or too middle class. I also like the Observer, but that's probably because it's a Sunday tradition.

Still, living in the age of the new media we will probably get to see a lot more established papers go. What price The Sun now you can get unlimited tits free online?

[T_i_B]

4. Well The London Paper has already been closed by News International

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8262303.stm

Now I suppose that's a relief for London commuters who won't have people shoving copies into their hands on every street corner from 4pm every weekday but then again if the London free press is struggling, where does that leave the papers you have to pay for?

[oldironside]

5. Exactly.

Do you still buy a newspaper or just read it online? There are still a hardcore of commuters and factory workers (by the way, I've been both) who will buy a newspaper to fill in traveling times or breaks, but there is very little point in buying a newspaper to read at home when you've got the internet. Also, the young are more likely to fill in these gaps with iPods or mobile phone games.

We are witnessing the end of an era.

[T_i_B]

7. Less so with commuters then it used to be.

And it's all thanks to Metro. You can pick up a copy on buses, trams and trains going in and out of most major cities and even if most of the news in it seems to be about what Pixie Lott had for breakfast it seems to be making paid-for newpapers less read then they used to be.

I wouldn't dream of using stories from Metro online though. You get better, more in depth articles elsewhere.

If Metro were to get a decent puzzle section then the rest of the UK press would be in even bigger trouble!

[oldironside]

9. Ah, I don't live in the UK any more,

so I haven't noticed this. Very few Germans buy newspapers, and if they do it's Bild (imagine the Sun without the intelligence), or some local rag (Hamburger Abendblatt is usually left on the S-Bahn I use).

To paraphrase John Lennon, "Newspapers will vanish and shrink". Just a matter of when the last dinosaur disappears and how much they will make us pay for professional news services online.

[LeftishBrit]

6. That's bad news...

but I think newspapers in general will be in more trouble, given the availability of news on the internet.

O'Brien sounds like an arrogant bastard ("It's not a relevant newspaper anymore!") but I suppose if that's the attitude, I'd rather see it closed than sold to someone like Murdoch.

I just wish the Daily Hate-Mail and Sun would fold!

[fedsron2us]

8. Vicious circle I am afraid.

Declining revenues, due to falling readership, means less money for journalists, leading to scantier news coverage etc which in turns means more readers deserting the paper. Pressure from free media alternatives makes matters worse. All the basic news wires (AP, Reuters etc) are available online and many bloggers offer comment and coverage of the news that knock spots off the partisan tripe churned out by many hacks from the Street of Shame.

[oldironside]

10. This could go one of two ways...

either lead to genuinely unbiased news coverage whereby people make up their own minds or to further ghettoisation where people will choose an online news provider who fits their own preconceptions (I'm thinking about freerepublic.com) and magnifies them.

Of course, as an Englishman, I'm naturally a pessimist. Imagine the future. It's small groups of people with their fingers in their ears, screaming at each other.

[fedsron2us]

11. People have always bought newspapers to 'inform their prejudices'

rather than to seek unbiased news. In some respects papers such as the Guardian, the Mail and the Sun etc are already preaching to the converted. They can subtly form opinion amongst their readership but to a certain extent a lot of the time they are simply telling their audience what they want to hear. The difference with many of the online comment channels is that most do not even pretend to be unbiased.

[Nihil]

12. ... which is why the loss of the Independent is telling ...

... as it indicates that the paper-buying public may be going to
the extremes (who "preach to the converted" and thus reinforce the
polarisation that's driving people away from the centre) ...