MEDIA STUDIES
For sale: two Independents and one Observer (reduced)
STEPHEN GLOVER
The Independent titles, journalists assume, are up for sale. Barely a day passes without a new rumour. The Barclay Broth- ers are said to be about to make a move. Mohamed Al Fayed is reputed to be licking his lips. According to another recent report, Jonathan Fenby, a former editor of the Observer, may be nosing about on behalf of an Asian investor — possibly Robert Kuok, proprietor of the South China Morning Post, which newspaper Mr Fenby happens to edit.
The belief that the Independent and its Sunday sister are likely soon to come under the hammer is based on impeccable logic. The two newspapers are shipping water, each close to an all-time circulation low. They have both been subjected to ruthless cost-cutting by their owners, Mirror Group Newspapers and Independent Newspapers plc of Ireland. Though both titles are edit- ed in a rather spirited way, their want of proper journalistic resources is painfully evident. The Independent on Sunday, for example, has only three financial journal- ists: its City pages are farmed out to a New York-based financial news agency called Bloomberg. Surely, the argument goes, this state of affairs cannot last.
Then there is a subplot involving the Observer and the Independent on Sunday in which the two papers merge. The Observer, whose sales show no sign of breaking out of a range of about 450,000 copies, is losing some £10 million a year. The Independent on Sunday sells about 170,000 copies fewer but is losing much less money. On the other hand, it appears to be heading nowhere. A marriage of the two titles would seem to make sense, particularly from the point of view of the Observer, whose owners, the Guardian Media Trust, can ill afford losses of this magnitude.
Let us consider potential suitors one by one. First the Barclay Brothers, the secre- tive identical twins who own the Scotsman titles and the European. Their new editor- in-chief Andrew Neil is believed to be on the look-out for acquisitions. The Indepen- dent titles might seem to be the obvious object of desire for the ambitious brothers had we not Mr Neil's recent categoric state- ment to Press Gazette, the journalists' mag- azine, that he and his masters are not inter- ested. However, some may prefer to regard Mr Neil's denial as less than watertight.
Then we have Mr Al Fayed, who makes no secret of his wish to acquire the Inde- pendent titles. He has recently met Tony O'Reilly, whose Irish Independent group speaks for 46 per cent of the two Indepen- dent newspapers. What came of this encounter I do not know, but my feeling is that Mr Al Fayed is rather unlikely to emerge as their owner. The biggest of sever- al impediments lies in his own heart. Does this fledgling publisher really wish to pay a very large sum of money for two loss- mak- ing titles? Mirror Group's unofficial valua- tion of the two Independent titles is between £75 and £80 million. This is a con- siderable amount of money for two newspa- pers jointly losing about £5 million a year, whose circulation is almost rock bottom.
But perhaps an Asian billionaire would find such losses more bearable? According to a recent report in Press Gazette, the aforementioned Mr Fenby has travelled from Hong Kong to London to size up the Independent titles, possibly on behalf of a rich Asian publisher. It is perfectly true that Mr Fenby is in London. When I tracked him down he disavowed the rather glam- orous role that had been attributed to him. On the other hand, he did say that his instinct was that something was going on, though he could not for the life of him say what it was.
Finally, there is the Guardian Media Trust, whose heavy losses on the Observer cannot be borne for ever. There have been several meetings with the Independent's owners over the years. Recently David Montgomery, the chief executive of Mirror Group Newspapers, made an approach to the trust, but this was evidently to discuss an anti-Murdoch alliance rather than an actual merger between the Independent on Sunday and the Observer. My guess is that as things stand the initiative is as likely to come from the Guardian Media Trust as from Mirror Group, since the Observer is making far greater losses. There is nothing to suggest that the paper is recovering, which is a subject for another column. Something certainly needs to be done about both Independent titles, and the sooner a serious suitor emerges the better. It is inconceivable that the present owners can supply the necessary inspiration, though whether Independent Newspapers could make a better fist of things given sole control may be open to conjecture. The danger is that Mirror Group, which man- ages the titles and is effectively the senior partner, will demand more for them than they could be worth to a prospective pur- chaser. The two papers' much reduced loss- es are no longer very painful and in theory could be sustained almost indefinitely. All the same, I don't see Mirror Group hang- ing on for ever. Even Mr Montgomery can't enjoy presiding over a failure.
What kind of man is John Major? It is remarkable how even now opinions differ. Some say that he is vengeful and petty- minded, others aver that he is by nature generous and open-hearted. This latter group asserts that he never forgets his friends. Others say that he is perfectly capable of doing so.
I don't really know, so I am going to apply a test of my own. During Mr Major's darkest days — which admittedly spanned a considerable portion of his prime minister- ship — his most eloquent and courageous supporter in the press was Stewart Steven, then editor of the London Evening Stan- dard. In those days the only other newspa- per which rooted for Mr Major was the Daily Express, edited by Sir Nicholas Lloyd, but in comparison with the Standard's its support was galumphing and not truly heartfelt.
Mr Steven has since left the Standard, and the paper has sadly declined under the editorship of Max Hastings. No more of that. But I wonder whether Mr Major will remember the man who was for a time vir- tually his only friend in Fleet Street. Mr Steven's support was neither craven nor sycophantic. His heart went out to someone whom, rightly or wrongly, he saw as a vic- tim of snobs and political lunatics. Though he was capable of criticising Mr Major in editorials, he sought always to be fair.
Will Mr Major remember his ingenious advocate when he comes to draw up his resignation honours? Or will his list merely favour political place men? Upon this hangs my final opinion of the man.
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