Paying the price: cost of Johnston Press’s debt September 8, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : Journalism, Newspapers , add a commentSobering stuff as Peter Kirwan spells out the numbers underlying Johnston Press’s refinancing of £485m debt. As he puts it, “the maths are grim”, concluding that:
the running total for bank payments comes to £75.2m during the next year. Remarkably, this equates to an annualised interest rate of neither 5% nor 10%, but 15.5%.
This, remember, is before Johnston Press repays any of its outstanding loans. Here, too, the terms of the deal are draconian. In addition to everything else, the company has promised to repay £85m of debt by next May.
Now clearly, this is a lot of money for a rapidly-shrinking regional newspaper publisher that turned in £27.5m in pre-tax profits during the first six months of this year.
Kirwan then raises the prospect — if Johnston is unable to repay that £85m by May 2010 — of payment in kind (PIK) penalties, which could take the effective interest rate to 20% or more. Gulp.
Welcome To 2007: Johnston Press Bans Facebook | paidContent:UK July 2, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a comment"Can any modern news publishing business justify banning its staff from accessing social networking sites? While many national and regional newspapers have now reversed earlier decisions to ban workplace access to time-sapping Facebook—Johnston Press has set the clock back to 2007 and informed staff at The Scotsman and its other Edinburgh papers that Facebook is banned except in special cases. In a memo, (via Allmediascotland), JP management warn reporters that “a recent review” found more than half of the company’s entire outbound traffic is to Facebook so it has no choice but it stop people visiting. the Memo reads: “Journalists who require access should seek approval from their departmental head, who should contact the Group Helpdesk to have the permission restored.”
Just like Friends Reunited before it, Facebook has become a standard reporting tool for many local and regional reporters—one JP journalist told me recently they couldn’t imagine working without it.
Newspaper bosses blast BBC over local websites – Times Online October 17, 2008
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentMore on this continuing turf war, which touches on competition, private vs public, newspapers vs broadcaster(s) — not to mention who's got the money (and will?) for such investment. NB The BBC Trust has yet to formally approve the plans. More arguments to follow, no doubt.
"Two of Britain's newspaper bosses lined up to attack Sir Michael Lyons, the chairman of the BBC Trust, for saying that "nobody can be satisfied" with the quality of the country's local and regional press.
Sly Bailey, the chief executive of Trinity Mirror, owner of the Liverpool Echo, and Tim Bowdler, the chief executive of Johnston Press, owner of the Yorkshire Post, said that his remarks implied that he had prejudged a review of BBC plans to expand its local websites."