Tuppence and an Orange
BY RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL THERE were two surprising aspects about last week's announcement that three national newspapers, the Daily Mirror, the News Chronicle and the Daily Herald, were going to increase their selling price from lid. to 2d. : first, that the initiative came from the Daily Mirror, and secondly, that the Daily Express and Daily Mail did not follow suit. Usually the Newspaper Proprietors' Association manages to achieve uniformity in such matters. The question of an increase in price had been in the air ever since the news- paper strike last March. Since then negotiations for wage increases have been going on between the NPA and the unions. It has been clear for some time that the unions will soon gain all, and possibly more than all, that they asked for at the time of the strike.
Last weak the Daily Mirror asked for a meeting of the NPA to raise the question of an increase in price. The situation irresistibly evokes the comical tale of the girl who explained her fall from virtue by saying that she did it for 'tuppence and an orange.' After the increase to 2d. had been strongly urged by the Daily Mirror, it was expected that the Daily Herald and the News Chronicle would support it, since they are the two papers which are financially the weakest. How- ever, they remained silent, and it was left to the representatives of the Daily Express and the Daily Mail to intimate that they would not be parties to any such proceeding.
The meeting broke up inconclusively and in mild disorder. The Daily Mirror announced that night that it was going to 2d., and the Daily Herald and the News Chronicle quickly followed its lead. It must have been embarrassing to both these papers to do so, for both of them, had recently been campaigning about the high cost of living and had been urging manufacturers to lower the price of their wares. But necessity knows no law. The Daily Express (which has campaigned in a similar sense) and the Daily Mail are under no such necessity. Both are making plenty of money at lid. Indeed, the Daily Express made slightly more money last year than in 1953, and it is making more money in 1955 than in 1954. In addition. since well over 80 per cent. of the ordinary and preference shares in the Daily Express are owned by Lord Beaverbrook, Mr. Max Aitken and the Beaverbrook Foundation, of which Lord Beaverbrook and his son are respectively chairman and vice-chairman, the Express Newspapers have no need to con- cern themselves with paying a high dividend.
Fleet Street is plainly puzzled by the policy of the Daily Mirror. Of course, with a circulation as large as theirs (4,600,000), an extra halfpenny is an important consideration. Proportionately to other papers, the selling price is a more important item of revenue than is the income from adver- tising. Of the additional halfpenny, probably half will go to the newsagents: but an extra 4,600.000 farthings a day is not to be sneezed at. That amounts to £4,791 13s. 4d. With six days a week, fifty-two weeks in the year, that means, provided it loses no circulation, an additional annual income of nearly £1,500,000.
A few weeks ago the Daily Mirror announced that it had sold all its preference shares in the newsprint company of. Albert E. Reed for £3,200,000. There has been much specu- lation as to why the Daily Mirror should wish at this moment to have a substantial sum of cash in hand. It is known that the Daily Mirror's boss, Mr. Cecil Harmsworth King, wishes to increase his already enormous circulation by printing in Man- chester as well as London. All his rivals already do so, while the Daily Express and Daily Mail print in Scotland as well— the Daily Express in Glasgow and the Daily Mail in Edinburgh. Some people believe that the mobilisation of these financial resources by the Daily Mirror means that in the near future it will build a printirig press in Manchester; it has certainly ordered a lot of new machinery. But there is another view of the Daily Mirror strategy. I have heard it suggested in one sagacious quarter that the Daily Mirror is negotiating to buy all Lord Kemsley's provincial newspapers. If this project were to be realised, it would-obviously suit the Daily Mirror down to the ground. It would not only acquire this still valuable group of provincial newspapers but also the immense Kemsley printing establishment at Withy Grove in Manchester. In addition, it would acquire the plant which prints Lord Kemsley's Glasgow papers, the Daily Record and the Evening News. This, however, is all in the realm of gossip and speculation.
Meanwhile, who are likely to be the beneficiaries of the half- penny increase by the Daily Mirror, the Daily Herald and the News Chronicle? Obviously the greatest advantage will flow to Lord Rothermere's Daily Sketch. The Daily Sketch went to 2d. some time before Lord Kemsley sold it two years ago to Lord Rothermere, and under his ownership, which he shares with the News of the World, the circulation has been raised from something under 600,000 to over 1,000,000. But it still has less than a quarter of the sale of the Daily Mirror, whose format, typography and standards of taste it so slavishly seeks to emulate. There can be little doubt that, with them both selling at 2d., the Daily Sketch will gain some circulation from the Daily Mirror, so long as Lord Rothermere preserves his present policy of keeping his sights firmly trained on the gutter.
The Daily Express and the Daily Mail may also gain some circulation. At lid., they are both very much better value than the Daily Herald and the News Chronicle at 2d. The Daily Telegraph, which raised its price from lid. to 2d. some years ago, should also gain circulation while it stays at 2d.—half the price of The Times and two-thirds that of the Manchester Guardian. It is obviously a much better buy than the News Chronicle at the same price. Meanwhile, the News Chronicle, to spare its own blushes at raising the cost of living, started a series of articles on Monday on Mr. R. A. Butler entitled 'Man in the Red : Success is his Motto.' All who admire the journa- listic integrity and enterprise of the News Chronicle will hope that at 2d. it will successfully find itself in the black, or at least in the orange.
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