I have been thinking about the death spiral of newspapers. If the internet was not bad enough, along comes Covid-19 to wipe out sales and advertising revenue. In particular, I have been contemplating the fate of the News Letter. As you may know, it is the oldest English language daily newspaper still in publication, having first been printed in 1737. Now whatever you think of its politics or the opinions of some of its writers, you would have to agree from a historical and cultural perspective it is important it survives.
The News Letter is owned by JPI Media, a massive media company with over 150 titles. But they have been going through their own financial misfortunes. With sales down to only 11k, the News Letter is in bad shape. To be frank they could be looking at more cuts or even closure.
On the other hand, the Irish News is in decent shape, selling about 30k copies a day. It is now the top-selling local paper. The once mightly Belfast Telegraph is a shadow of its former self on paid sales of 25k.
There are cost-saving synergies to be had by the Irish News buying the News Letter. They can share offices, tech platforms, ad sales, administration, printing facilities etc. Because the market for each title is so diverse very few people buy both so it would be easy to share politically non-contentious content between the two titles eg business news, sport, features etc. They can still keep their respective political viewpoints with separate political journalists.
Now the obvious stumbling block. The Irish News is owned by the Fitzpatrick family, who are one of the most prominent Catholic families in Northern Ireland – not an obvious fit for the Unionist leaning News Letter. BUT hear me out. The Fitzpatrick family respect and represent local journalism. They also respect culture and tradition. The News Letter needs a stable owner, and the Fitzpatricks could deliver that.
As I said with Covid-19 all newspapers are getting hit hard and I am sure the Irish News is bleeding cash at the moment like the rest of the industry. This proposal assumes some kind of government support for local publishing and a return to life as normal which will happen at some stage. I suspect you could buy the News Letter at zero or a very low cost, JPI Media might be more than likely be happy to get it their books.
Can I stress this is only my idea. The Fitzpatricks might have absolutely no interest in buying the News Letter. Jim Fitzpatrick may be in his late 80s now, but I wonder if the thought of pulling off one last big deal would be tempting? There would likely be very little financial sense in buying an asset in a market that is declining, but owning the oldest English language daily newspaper is an attractive prize.
Photo by stevepb is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
Managing Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any political party. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.
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