The press
Andy, Su and the chimps
Paul Johnson
There is a theory in Fleet Street that within a few years all the nationals with the possible exception of the two Telegraphs — will be tabloids, though heavies like the Times and Observer will be the size of Le Monde rather than the Sun. Certainly the consensus is that there's no future for a broadsheet popular. The News of the World was the last to accept the in- evitable on Sunday, having previously equipped itself with a tabloid editor, Nick Lloyd (late of the Sunday People), to take charge of the transformation. The NoW is a venerable old monster. I have a soft spot for it, not least because it is, in my experience, more punctilious about changing or cutting a writer's copy than any other Fleet Street paper. Some years ago, when I was at a dinner-party in a Highland castle, the kilted butler approach- ed the hostess and announced in a power- ful voice: 'An urgent telephone call for Mr Johnson, m'lady. The Editor of the News of the Worrld wishes to speak to him!' Consternation and Schadenfreude among the other guests! All the NoW wanted, however, was permission to cut a couple of lines, for reasons of space, from a leader- page article I had written for them. But venerable it is, and circulation has been falling fairly steadily over the past 20 years. In the early Seventies it was still over the six-million mark. Today, many editors later, and having introduced a colour mag a couple of years ago, the paper is selling around 4,150,000. Tabloiding has pro- voked a good deal of jeering from Mirror Group Newspapers, publishers of the No W's main rivals, the People and the Sun- day Mirror. They had a rude full-page ad in the last issue of Campaign, the adman's weekly, under the heading 'We're holding our breath for you ... hic!' According to them, any sales gained by the Now's move into tabloid format would be just 'another little hic-up' on its downward trend. The ad claimed that total circulation for the Mirror and the People, counting sales of the group's Scottish paper, the Sunday Mail, were 4,277,000 and 4,167,000 respectively, well ahead of the NoW. Yes: but the Sun- day Mail is a wholly different paper, and another way of looking at it is to give the Mirror/People sales as 3,618,000 and 3,502,000, which puts the NoW ahead by more than half a million.
The NoW's big selling point over its rivals is that, as the only one of the three with a colour mag, it is now giving readers 92 pages .(the Mirror and People have 48 each) for the same price, 25p. This might be more impressive if its mag was not quite-so drearily predictable — Dallas starlets and the like. Even DIY or gardening features make more sense than this endless showbiz tagging-on. 1 told Nick Lloyd last week that he ought to get some really good comic strips — the present double-page spread in the mag is old hat and mostly American. Nearly everyone likes good comic strips, even though they may not admit it. Indeed, the best thing in the Standard, after Brian Walden and Valerie Grove, is 'Modesty Blaise'. The cartoon section in the Mail on Sunday, though also mainly poor quality, must help to sell the paper.
The biggest risk a broadsheet takes in go- ing tabloid is an abrupt drop in the number of words it prints, and a consequent fall in staff morale. The Daily Express has never quite got over this problem. In this respect, however, the NoW has had no difficulty. The first tabloid issue was full of words, in- cluding a first-rate article about the agonis- ing efforts of Michael Aspel's wife to have children. Its big mistake was to split its old leader page into two widely separated halves, so that its editorial, cartoon and Woodrow Wyatt column appeared on page 8, facing the nude, while its leader page feature (an above-average interview with Mrs Thatcher) was buried on page 15, op- posite a full-page life insurance ad. But that kind of thing can be easily corrected.
More serious was the sheer lack of news. It is asking too much, I suppose, for the NoW to go back to the old formula which made it not just a fascinating paper but a national institution: detailed reports on all the week's best court cases. Perhaps it is un- fair to judge the first issue too harshly, because of the sheer physical nightmare of changing from broadsheet to tabloid under trade union rules. But I must point out that the first news story was not to be found un- til one reached page four, and I counted on- ly ten altogether. The first three pages were devoted entirely to royal nonsense — 'An- drew and the Playgirl: Vicky Tells of Holi- day Love Affair: We Made Love Among the Scented Tropical Flowers' — and we had another royal double-spread inside: 'Private Life of Charlie and His Darling: She Goes to Bed at Nine with a Teddy'. It ended: 'The Queen is certain not to be amused.' Not the only reader, I'd say.
But then look at the competition! The Sunday Mirror seems to think its readers are interested only in TV series, above all Coronation Street. Its front page was devoted to an 'exclusive' story about the Street's sacked actor, Peter Adamson: 'Sorry, I Can't Pay Hilda: Adamson Owes Her £4,000'. Who the hell cares except Hilda? Inside there was a double-page spread about another ex-Streeter: 'Love, Money and Me: Nothing in the Bank but No Regrets'. Piling Pelion on ossification, the Mirror devoted two more pages to the stars of TV's holiday camp show: 'Hi-de-Hi Su's Jilted Lover Reveals their Sexy Secrets: Our Dotty Days and Naughty Nights'. The paper had only a dozen proper news stories, some of them meagre specimens.
The Sunday People, still to some extent a reporter's newspaper, did a little better. It had a genuine if feeble expose on its front page: 'Scandal of Charity Backed by the Queen: Disgrace Behind Tonight's TV Ap- peal', and a score of news stories inside. Gritting its teeth, it stuck to its tradition of revealing monstrous doings which decent folk find shocking. Its Man of the People was investigating 'cruelty on ,th, Costa Sunspots', under the heading: .V'e Save Orphan Annie: How British HolidaY, Cash Makes Life Sheer Hell for Bab) Chimps'. According to the People, the.
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are 200 monkeys being exploited in th Spanish holiday resorts, doing such jobs as handing out tickets to nightclubs. They itt hooked on drugs to keep them calm and have their front teeth removed to prey it biting; one had 16 cigarette burns on 1" body. All very sad, and slightly more teresting than the antics of Andrew' Charlie, Hilda and Su. But not quite what° newspaper is supposed to be about.
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