Comments on: Metro ups its circulation and goes local http://www.pkellypr.com/blog/2006/1217/metro-ups-its-circulation-and-goes-local/ Irish Communications Consultant - Be Noticed Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:49:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.2 by: Hummingbird Mentality :: We, the newspaper http://www.pkellypr.com/blog/2006/1217/metro-ups-its-circulation-and-goes-local/#comment-191463 Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:30:03 +0000 http://www.pkellypr.com/blog/2006/1217/metro-ups-its-circulation-and-goes-local/#comment-191463 [...] Simon McGarr, editor of online periodical Tuppenceworth, and in his role as advisor to Digital Rights Ireland, stalwart defender of all those juicy ephemeral rights and freedoms we currently enjoy online; has had an idea. You see Simon loves newspapers. He writes about them, speaks about them, and researches them, with the intensity others reserve for rock music or sports results. So when Simon tells me newspapers are in trouble, I listen. Readers are aging and circulations declining (relative to population growth), and the question inevitably arises, how can the humble daily hope to survive? Mr McGarr thinks he has an answer. Before we get to that, let me describe how things are on the other side of the fence; because you see, I’m part of the problem. Sure I’ll trawl through the Sunday Times if it’s lying around, I’ll even pay for a Guardian once in a blue moon if I’m feeling guilty and uninformed, or heaven forbid a Herald, when they drag up (as they invariably do) some new evidence in a cold, old case that has a special importance to me. But basically, I don’t read newspapers. Like the father portrayed in Buck 65’s wonderful track ‘Roses and Bluejays’, I ‘read books of every sort’ but ‘get all the news [I] need from the weather report.’ I avoid newspapers for the same reason I don’t watch television. I don’t enjoy being passively indoctrinated. Whilst my reasoning may not be representative, my apathy is. In a time when you can have Japanese lessons, National Public Radio, the latest news from the worlds of skydiving, knitting or subatomic physics delivered to your RSS reader, why would anyone read a newspaper? Or more accurately, why would anyone pay for a newspaper? Freesheets like Metro, which subsist on snazzily repackaged press releases and AP cuttings, seem to be doing quite well. The conventional answers - timeliness, local relevance, and newspaper specific features like investigative reporting, opinion editorials and Suduku grids - just don’t seem to cut it any more. Almost two years ago I attended a lecture delivered by Senator Shane Ross, Business Editor of the Sunday Independent, Irelands most popular ‘broadsheet’, and asked the esteemed magnate a cheeky question. How in the era of citizen journalism, podcasting, vidcasting, IPTV, blogging and user generated reportage, can traditional newspapers survive? His answer - they probably can’t, and that is no bad thing. [...] […] Simon McGarr, editor of online periodical Tuppenceworth, and in his role as advisor to Digital Rights Ireland, stalwart defender of all those juicy ephemeral rights and freedoms we currently enjoy online; has had an idea. You see Simon loves newspapers. He writes about them, speaks about them, and researches them, with the intensity others reserve for rock music or sports results. So when Simon tells me newspapers are in trouble, I listen. Readers are aging and circulations declining (relative to population growth), and the question inevitably arises, how can the humble daily hope to survive? Mr McGarr thinks he has an answer. Before we get to that, let me describe how things are on the other side of the fence; because you see, I’m part of the problem. Sure I’ll trawl through the Sunday Times if it’s lying around, I’ll even pay for a Guardian once in a blue moon if I’m feeling guilty and uninformed, or heaven forbid a Herald, when they drag up (as they invariably do) some new evidence in a cold, old case that has a special importance to me. But basically, I don’t read newspapers. Like the father portrayed in Buck 65’s wonderful track ‘Roses and Bluejays’, I ‘read books of every sort’ but ‘get all the news [I] need from the weather report.’ I avoid newspapers for the same reason I don’t watch television. I don’t enjoy being passively indoctrinated. Whilst my reasoning may not be representative, my apathy is. In a time when you can have Japanese lessons, National Public Radio, the latest news from the worlds of skydiving, knitting or subatomic physics delivered to your RSS reader, why would anyone read a newspaper? Or more accurately, why would anyone pay for a newspaper? Freesheets like Metro, which subsist on snazzily repackaged press releases and AP cuttings, seem to be doing quite well. The conventional answers - timeliness, local relevance, and newspaper specific features like investigative reporting, opinion editorials and Suduku grids - just don’t seem to cut it any more. Almost two years ago I attended a lecture delivered by Senator Shane Ross, Business Editor of the Sunday Independent, Irelands most popular ‘broadsheet’, and asked the esteemed magnate a cheeky question. How in the era of citizen journalism, podcasting, vidcasting, IPTV, blogging and user generated reportage, can traditional newspapers survive? His answer - they probably can’t, and that is no bad thing. […]

]]> by: Piaras http://www.pkellypr.com/blog/2006/1217/metro-ups-its-circulation-and-goes-local/#comment-68858 Wed, 20 Dec 2006 14:01:36 +0000 http://www.pkellypr.com/blog/2006/1217/metro-ups-its-circulation-and-goes-local/#comment-68858 Think they'll be relying on advertising to sustain it. Not sure how the distribution will be managed. On the rail contract, this has been talked about for a while. Last time the ST reported on it though they went with the angle that there was a bidding war between both publications. Interesting in light of the fact that there's no tender document though, time will tell I guess. Think they’ll be relying on advertising to sustain it. Not sure how the distribution will be managed.

On the rail contract, this has been talked about for a while. Last time the ST reported on it though they went with the angle that there was a bidding war between both publications. Interesting in light of the fact that there’s no tender document though, time will tell I guess.

]]> by: c4 http://www.pkellypr.com/blog/2006/1217/metro-ups-its-circulation-and-goes-local/#comment-68765 Wed, 20 Dec 2006 09:47:20 +0000 http://www.pkellypr.com/blog/2006/1217/metro-ups-its-circulation-and-goes-local/#comment-68765 I think that piece in the Sunday Times was a little bit of ‘bravado’ on behalf of the Metro. Galway. Cork and Limerick – whilst having a decent enough population – don’t have the transport structure sufficient to sustain a free ‘commuter’ newspaper like Metro and Herald AM. They also claimed in the same article that they offered E3m for the ‘rail contract’! Interesting as there has been no tender document issued by CIE asking for applications. I therefore conclude that Merto were simply writing their Christmas Wish List. I think that piece in the Sunday Times was a little bit of ‘bravado’ on behalf of the Metro.

Galway. Cork and Limerick – whilst having a decent enough population – don’t have the transport structure sufficient to sustain a free ‘commuter’ newspaper like Metro and Herald AM.

They also claimed in the same article that they offered E3m for the ‘rail contract’! Interesting as there has been no tender document issued by CIE asking for applications. I therefore conclude that Merto were simply writing their Christmas Wish List.

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