London's Evening Standard To End Daily Newspaper After Almost 200 Years (theguardian.com) 58
London's famed Evening Standard newspaper has announced plans to end its daily outlet, "bringing an end to almost 200 years of publication in the capital," reports The Guardian. Going forward, the company plans to launch "a brand new weekly newspaper later this year and consider options for retaining ES Magazine with reduced frequency," while also working to increase traffic to its website. "In its 197-year history the Evening Standard has altered its format, price, content and distribution models," notes The Guardian. "But giving up on producing a daily print newspaper is the biggest change yet." From the report: The newspaper said it has been hit hard by the introduction of wifi on the London Underground, a shortage of commuters owing to the growth of working from home and changing consumer habits. The Standard lost 84.5 million pounds in the past six years, according to its accounts, and is reliant on funding from its part-owner Evgeny Lebedev. Its other shareholders include a bank with close links to the Saudi government. Industry sources suggested Lebedev had been willing to consider selling the outlet in recent years but no buyer was found.
Paul Kanareck, the newspaper's chair, told staff on Wednesday morning: "The substantial losses accruing from the current operations are not sustainable. Therefore, we plan to consult with our staff and external stakeholders to reshape the business, return to profitability and secure the long-term future of the number one news brand in London." Kanareck said there would be an "impact on staffing," with journalists bracing themselves for further job losses on top of years of redundancies, while design staff on the print edition are expected to be hit hard. Distributors who hand out the newspaper across London are also likely to be out of work, and billboards outside railway stations advertising the day's headline will stand empty on most days.
He suggested there would be a change in focus for the weekly outlet: "A proposed new weekly newspaper would replace the daily publication, allowing for more in-depth analysis of the issues that matter to Londoners, and serve them in a new and relevant way by celebrating the best London has to offer, from entertainment guides to lifestyle, sports, culture and news and the drumbeat of life in the world's greatest city." Closing the Evening Standard will mean that for the first time in centuries, Londoners will have no general-interest daily print newspaper. The finance-focused City AM, which was recently saved by the billionaire Matthew Moulding, will continue to publish four days a week and has recently increased its distribution. Further reading: So it's goodbye to London's Standard, my old paper -- and to the heart of democracy, local news (Opinion; The Guardian)
Paul Kanareck, the newspaper's chair, told staff on Wednesday morning: "The substantial losses accruing from the current operations are not sustainable. Therefore, we plan to consult with our staff and external stakeholders to reshape the business, return to profitability and secure the long-term future of the number one news brand in London." Kanareck said there would be an "impact on staffing," with journalists bracing themselves for further job losses on top of years of redundancies, while design staff on the print edition are expected to be hit hard. Distributors who hand out the newspaper across London are also likely to be out of work, and billboards outside railway stations advertising the day's headline will stand empty on most days.
He suggested there would be a change in focus for the weekly outlet: "A proposed new weekly newspaper would replace the daily publication, allowing for more in-depth analysis of the issues that matter to Londoners, and serve them in a new and relevant way by celebrating the best London has to offer, from entertainment guides to lifestyle, sports, culture and news and the drumbeat of life in the world's greatest city." Closing the Evening Standard will mean that for the first time in centuries, Londoners will have no general-interest daily print newspaper. The finance-focused City AM, which was recently saved by the billionaire Matthew Moulding, will continue to publish four days a week and has recently increased its distribution. Further reading: So it's goodbye to London's Standard, my old paper -- and to the heart of democracy, local news (Opinion; The Guardian)
Blame slashdot (Score:2)
You guys killed it, I hope you're happy.
No, we definitely didn't! (Score:3)
We used to buy newspapers religiously, because we always need some paper to wrap things in it.
The newspapers betrayed us - the pages get fewer and fewer, and the formats smaller, so these days a newspaper is pretty much useless. So, we gradually stopped buying them.
It was a suicide act.
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The Evening Standard is a free newspaper funded by advertising.
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You can tell I'm not from London :)
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we always need some paper to wrap things in it.
Newsprint was banned for wrapping fish & chips back in the seventies. It's been an inevitable downward spiral ever since then.
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Yep, "you can't wrap ... in an ipad" didn't age well.
What will the business model for news be? (Score:5, Interesting)
Free content online with ads does not seem to pay the bills; asking us all to fork over $60 a year for subscriptions to any of the 500 websites we visit on a regular basis seems unrealistic. Micropayments seem to be lagging and most people just read the titles and skip the article on both Slashdot and social media. So who pays for the creation of all this content? At present there seems to be no answer.
Re:What will the business model for news be? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not clear why this was modded down to 0, but you're right. You hit the nail right on the head. The problem though is that most of what we read these days as news is at best thinly disguised entertainment, or at worst politically divisive and socially destructive garbage. Now, that stuff has the right to exist as far as most honest public sentiments are concerned, but absolutely should be held accountable to its real market value by demand-based costs, and if it can't pay the bills then that's proof it doesn't deserve to exist. However, there's another component of the news, the more traditional justification for it's existence: facts on current and ongoing events that are important to the public interest. This latter stuff is serving a critical function to society, and its existence should never have been allowed to get saddled with profitability requirements or probably even really mixed with the former editorialized content to begin with. Now, under our current capitalistic ideals, this purely fact-based stuff should be run as a non-profit and propped up by whatever tax incentives or organized grassroots donation structure is necessary, but with clear legal guidelines to make sure that neither the government, individuals, corporate entities, or any other sort of organizations can influence it for their own gain in any way, but also under our current capitalistic ideals, everyone is gonna selfishly argue they shouldn't have to pay for it while at the same time secretly knowingly benefiting from it for free from 2nd or 3rd-hand sources.
To be clear, I don't think money is the root of all evil. I know the root of all evil is an individual, a real entity with a real, factual identity. (And no, I don't mean Donald Trump.) But I also know that if someone were trying to make the case that money is the root of all evil this situation would be excellent fodder for their argument.
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> If someone were trying to make the case that money is the root of all evil
Nobody ever did, though. The love of money, on the other hand...
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You know, I had to actually look up where "Money is the root of all evil". I had assumed it was one of Shakesperes colorful turns of phrase (he was both prolific and rather good at it, its shocking how much of our language comes from the great bard). The bible, or rather as you point out "The love of money is the root of all evil" from 1 Timothy 6:10.
Thats going to be a fun one to hurl at the insufferable "Prosperity Gospel" christians. Seems a little more direct than Jesus throwing tables at moneylenders a
Re:What will the business model for news be? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not clear why this was modded down to 0,
I still don't understand how the mod system still confuses so many people. The parent post was not modded down to zero, it started at 0 and had not been modded up or down when you and I posted here.
A user's post can start with a score of -1, 0, 1, or 2 (depending on their Karma rating) without the post being modded at all. AC posts always start at 0. You can see the mod history of a post by clicking on the score.
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Given the UIDs and the parents, is this the Slashdot equivalent of a teenager explaining to their parents how a computer works?
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I think people are just used to registered users having positive karma. I know I don't even remember a time when my karma level was less than 2.
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Sure, outliers exist. Most people who post seem to have +2 karma though. I notice you do for the instance.
Your example is a little amusing to me though as a majority of my own posting is in political threads and I don't even remember a time when I had less than 2 karma.
Re:What will the business model for news be? (Score:4, Interesting)
Free content online with ads does not seem to pay the bills; asking us all to fork over $60 a year for subscriptions to any of the 500 websites we visit on a regular basis seems unrealistic. Micropayments seem to be lagging and most people just read the titles and skip the article on both Slashdot and social media. So who pays for the creation of all this content? At present there seems to be no answer.
Actually, I think the answer is partly in the article itself:
The Standard lost 84.5 million pounds in the past six years, according to its accounts, and is reliant on funding from its part-owner Evgeny Lebedev
[...]
The finance-focused City AM, which was recently saved by the billionaire Matthew Moulding, will continue to publish four days a week and has recently increased its distribution.
And Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post (at a loss afaik).
The old model was newspaper barons getting rich off of the news, now that the profit is leaving the industry I suspect the new model will be multi-billionaires buying papers the way they do sports teams.
As a model it might not be as terrible as it sounds, if their interests are prestige more than profit then they might be content to stay hands-off and have a really "respected" news org (and bad PR for the paper is bad PR for the owner).
Of course, it does mean instead of feeling subtle pressure from their corporate overlords they now feel subtle pressure from their billionaire overlords. So keeping the plutocrats in check won't really be much easier.
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Newspapers made money off the Classifieds, far more than the ads. Without that gold mine, newspapers have to cut costs somewhere.
In short, Craig's List killed the newspapers.
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>At present there seems to be no answer.
AI
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Three real options:
-Amateur journalists posting to blog/vlog sites. Hobbyists focused on what interests them.
-Government funded news ala BBC. Underfunded and unpopular, but relatively unbiased.
-Privately funded news. Pushing the bias that earns their owners the money and power.
The other options are doomed to fail.
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Free content online with ads does not seem to pay the bills; asking us all to fork over $60 a year for subscriptions to any of the 500 websites we visit on a regular basis seems unrealistic. Micropayments seem to be lagging and most people just read the titles and skip the article on both Slashdot and social media. So who pays for the creation of all this content? At present there seems to be no answer.
AIs will write it. Other AIs will iterate over it and aggregate it. Other AIs will re-write it for reposts. And still more AIs will disseminate it to the masses in soundbytes on your favorite advertising platform. Humans need only consume the finest of regurgitated digital hallucinations. That's all we need.
WiFi? (Score:3)
Re:WiFi? (Score:4, Informative)
Population growth does that as does changing transport formats. In addition to the 50% population growth in the past 30 years there's also a massive push to reduce car usage in London along with a requirement to get people from the sprawl in the fringes into the city.
This is a good thing. A full tube shows optimum use of one of the best forms of transport we have, and that's what makes London such an excellent place to live.
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But anyway, with the LES gone, what are commuters going to use to hide behind in order to avoid eye contact with each other now?!
The same thing everyone else does, Pinky. Their phone.
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Re:WiFi? (Score:5, Informative)
In addition, London didn't go through the modernisations in its layout that other European cities did, i.e. long, wide avenues, & grids &/or concentric rings of roads, e.g. Paris & Moscow.
They tried twice. First time after the fire, they figured they could but the Londoners all rushed back to secure their property boundaries. There was then a 300 year gap from 1666 to 196? when they tried to replace all of london with mororways. Thankfully that misbegotten scheme failed too, due to massive local opposition, though they did start doing it and some very icurious remnants can be found.
The medieval road layout means that its particularly difficult to navigate even if you know the city well
There's really only a bit of medieval road layout. My bit of London didn't really get going until the late 1800s.
This also means that it's more difficult to introduce overland light rail/tram lines
London used to have an extensive tram network, with part of it going quite near to where I live.
https://mappinglondon.co.uk/20... [mappinglondon.co.uk]
Naturally they were all ripped up to make way for cars (with a tiny, useless sop to buses). Because cars are the future. And any attempt to prevent the continual gridlock and massive pollution is a WAR on drivers.
Stations frequently have to be closed because of overcrowding
This is something of an exaggeration. It's hard to find stats, but here's one recent enough year:
https://www.london.gov.uk/who-... [london.gov.uk]
Average of one station closed temporarily due to overcrowding per month in the entire tube network. I think I may have encountered a closed station a grand total of once, having lived in London for the majority of my life.
The current answer seems to be to reduce the number of cars in circulation in the centre to make more room for buses, cabs, & taxis.
And bikes and pedestrians, and other forms of efficient transport. And not so much taxis (since they're not really better than cars). The City has been pretty firm on that, much to the annoyance of the taxi drivers, but they're completely immune from party politics anyway.
It's a bit difficult because while TfL has policy, a lot is up to the local councils, and some of them are shit. Generally the Tory ones.
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To be fair, I typically work in London during the peak season, in summer where there are a lot of tourists in addition to commuters at peak times. I plan to avoid peak times exactly because of Tube station closures, of which I've encountered several times in recent years. I guess it's probably limited to the busier stations but those are in the areas I typically have to travel.
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Ah no problem. I live here permanently. I've been hit with a closure at Victoria once at rush hour. Usually, there is simply an annoyingly long queue. I avoid rush hour where possible
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Average of one station closed temporarily due to overcrowding per month in the entire tube network. I think I may have encountered a closed station a grand total of once, having lived in London for the majority of my life.
This statement should be expanded on. There are 272 tube stations. TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY TWO. That's the third highest number in the west behind New York and Paris. It's no small feat to have 1 issue a month with that kind of network, and New York really isn't in a much better place.
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And that's just the tube. There's also an extensive urban/suburban rail network (the newest tube line is actually full sized heavy rail) of about 350 stations of which about 1/3 run TfL services.
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It's because Sadiq Khan and TfL keep making things worse.
you misspelled "better".
Give us a better solution than cars and we'll take it.
That is happening as we speak. But you object.
Instead TfL has been ripping up streets in my neighborhood despite local objections.
This is false. The majority of the noise is local objections, but the majority of people want LTNs. The last council elections had two anti-LTN major candidates, Tory and Lib Dem. So you can't blame the anti-LTN vote drop on anti-Tory sentimen
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hehe found the gammon!
I have a bike. I don't pedal with bare feet like Fred Flintstone, no idea what your are on there mate.
I have elderly relatives. I usually go by train because I don't fancy slogging around the south circular or Tooting bloody high street.
I've been to Cambridge many times, I usually go by train since it does 90 and is immune to traffic, though I went by bike once.
Buses are fine. I Like busses. But o love how you have a fantasy that my life doesn't exist as a non car owner, like the major
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Ah yes contempt for democracy is when people vote for the wrong thing haha lol you're such an idiot!
Pro LTN parties are consistently gaining votes in every election where traffic feature on the ballot. You are positive Trumpian in the assumption that any result which goes against you is a flared election.
I keep voting for PRO LTN candidates. I even went against my usual party when they came out against LTNs. Actually come to think of it they, the lib dems, got creamed in that election when the other major a
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Your mind can't comprehend that I loathe Trump and Farage, support ULEZ, and am completely against harmful LTNs as a matter of progressive economic policy.
I can comprehend that. I can also comprehend that you have the Trumpian tactic of claiming every election which goes completely against your desires is somehow faked or flawed. You can disagree with someone, even loath them while using their tactics.
Anyway, I notice your weasel wording there. Sure I'm against harmful LTNs too. I'll let you know when I fi
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Indeed, it's this kind of insanity where people hear that someone was killed by a bike and then leap from that to then being as dangerous as cars because cars also kill people.
Well insanity mixed with a stupid culture war.
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The Tube is a relic.
It absolutely is, but that doesn't change the fact that it's use as a form of transport is a good thing. In comparative European terms it's a pretty damn nasty subway, but there's no denying it beats out even Paris Metro as a suitable form of transport for getting where you need to go. I'll take a Tube over a subway line that doesn't get me where I need to go any day of the week. ... I mean that literally, why would I take a subway that doesn't get me where it needs to.
The tube is a victim of its own succes
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Well, part of Russia is in Europe, and Moscow is in that part. The Ural Mountains are usually cited as the border between Europe and Asia.
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> But anyway, with the LES gone, what are commuters going to use to hide behind in order to avoid eye contact with each other now?!
Phones...
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Population growth does that as does changing transport formats.
No, population growth alone does not do that. It requires population growth plus inadequate investment in growing the public transport infrastructure.
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No, population growth alone does not do that. It requires population growth plus inadequate investment in growing the public transport infrastructure.
Actually quite the opposite. The tube is a shining example of actual investment occurring. In the time frame I mentioned the tube expanded with many new lines, many new stations, new ticketing systems, upgraded safety standards (platform edge doors) on the busiest platforms (with more planned), the network was added to and linked to cross rail.
You seem to see a busy tube as underinvestment rather than what it actually is: evidence of efficient use of infrastructure. You *want* your inner city tube stations
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> what makes London such an excellent place to live
To visit, maybe. Not live.
Tiktokish news (Score:2)
anyone....? With the attention span that people have now a days, very few read anything beyond the headlines. What the industry needs is a tiktokish news digest filled with more fiction than fact. That will be a money machine.
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You mean like the former twatter, the service of Phony Stark? Is it successful? Does it make money?
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I still get a chuckle at how Musk fucked himself buying a PoS service for like 10 times its real value just because he can't keep mouth shut.
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Yes, tears are worth a lot, but the only one crying is Phony Stark, baby.
Also, you didn't answer the question, is twatter successful? Does it make money?