Does it matter if The Observer closes?

Much speculation this week that The Observer, Sunday sister paper of The Guardian (both of which are owned by Guardian News and Media under the beneficent custodianship of The Scott Trust), is on the brink of being closed down, and perhaps converted into a weekly news magazine. This follows some disastrous financial results for the Guardian Media Group, which recorded a pre-tax loss of almost £90m in 2008-09, £37m of which was contributed by GNM. As the Financial Times reported earlier this week:

GNM has started work on a three-year strategic plan, including radical measures aimed at assuring the future of The Guardian, the group’s daily newspaper, a senior figure in the group said.

The plan is aimed not so much at addressing a fall in newspaper advertising revenues caused by the economic downturn but at surviving the effects of a longer-term shift by readers and advertisers to the internet. …
No decisions have been made on the future of The Observer under the strategic plan but closure of the title in its present form has not been ruled out. According to a person close to the management of The Observer, staff became alarmed last week when they discovered a secret “dummy” of a weekly news magazine with their own title’s branding on it.

The magazine, marked as a midweek publication, was run up at Herbal Hill, the former home of The Observer before it moved to the new home of GNM in north London. The magazine had been shown to members of the Scott Trust, the sovereign body of GNM, which “exists to secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity”, according to its charter. The trust holds no such brief for The Observer, which GNM bought in 1993.

Sunder Katwala at the Next Left blog is in no doubt that The Observer must survive as a Sunday newspaper of ‘the left’ (however that’s defined); while Sunny Hundal at Liberal Conspiracy is happy to sacrifice the Obs to secure the long-term future of the Grauniad.

Personally, I’m with Sunny. I guess it would be a shame if the Obs closed – I’m enough of a traditionalist to believe that institutions which have survived for two centuries should not be lightly dismissed. But, then again, I don’t buy the paper, haven’t since it was edited by the affably sweary Roger Alton, whose lack of news-nous and disastrous appointment of Kamal Ahmed as political editor sucked the political soul out of the paper, culminating in the Obs’ decision to back the Labour Government’s decision to invade Iraq.

The latest rumour is that threat of closure will be averted at the cost of job losses and a slimmed-down newspaper. It’s hard to see how the Obs can survive in the competitive Sunday newspaper market-place if it cuts back on its offering to readers – there have already been understandably vigorous complaints following its decision to excise the TV listings from the paper. After all, the Independent on Sunday’s attempts to increase profitability by slimming down have not been notable for their success.

Whatever the short-term fate of the Obs it seems increasingly likely that both it and the ‘Sindy’ will either fold or morph out of all recognition within the next five years, which will leave the Sunday ‘quality’ market to the right-wing press in the shape of the Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Times. We can mourn the loss of plurality. But, ultimately, if your paper doesn’t have both a sound business model and good-quality content then it ain’t going to survive.

Read more by or more about , , , or .
This entry was posted in Op-eds.
Advert

13 Comments

  • It would be a disaster for political discourse, and democracy, in this country if we only had right-wing newspapers.

  • Liberal Neil 5th Aug '09 - 12:28pm

    I had a subscription to The Observer until it decided to back the invasion of Iraq.

    It didn’t even use the good arguments for going in!

    It became a shadow of its former self years ago and I certainly wouldn’t shed any tears if it went.

    Its demise might also help the IoS, at least for a while.

  • Chris Keating 5th Aug '09 - 12:57pm

    I bought the Observer last weekend, and wasn’t very impressed. There was one story in the whole thing that was remotely interesting and large parts of it were the sort of thing I go out of my way to avoid reading about. But that isn’t really the point.

    Newspapers are commercial enterprises and if they don’t make money, out they go. If GMG don’t want it maybe a co-operative of “left-wing” bloggers can buy it off them 😉

  • If it went I would miss it.

  • The Observer closure by year end followed within the next couple of years by the Guardian when it loses all that government advertising revenue for public sector non jobs.
    Lefties will still have the misnamed Independent with the wonderful prose of Alibai- Brown to get off on and the New Labour ‘Times’ house journal if the Independent is a bit too far left for their views.

  • From a personal POV, I buy the Obs and not the Graun. I think it is more balanced than the Graun and not stuffed with Pollyannas.

  • Stanley Theed 5th Aug '09 - 8:13pm

    I gave up buying newspapers years ago and hardly, if ever, read one. Newspapers (which for the most part have become viewspapers) survive by reflecting the views and prejudiices of their readership. Makes you worry for the human race!

  • The Other Mark (again) 6th Aug '09 - 12:34am

    Can’t help but feel that the rumoured demise of the Observer is because its not very good, ditto the money-leaking Graun, the struggling Indie and the diabolical IoS.

    Its a shame that the four left/liberal papers are all struggling, but they only have themselves to blame; the articles and content just aren’t that compelling any more.

Post a Comment

Lib Dem Voice welcomes comments from everyone but we ask you to be polite, to be on topic and to be who you say you are. You can read our comments policy in full here. Please respect it and all readers of the site.

To have your photo next to your comment please signup your email address with Gravatar.

Your email is never published. Required fields are marked *

*
*
Please complete the name of this site, Liberal Democrat ...?

Advert

Recent Comments

  • Mick Scholes
    "It is rather similar to World War 2, when neither we nor Nazi Germany used poison gas, because both parties were aware of what it had done in WW1 and both part...
  • Dominic
    I agree with Amin (again!). If anything, having the capability to counter an enemy’s (hypothetical) use of tactical nukes reduces the risk that the enemy woul...
  • Dominic
    Not for the first time, I completely agree with Amin. The choice to end your life should be entirely your own and not impeded because someone else doesn’t lik...
  • Andy Chandler
    @Mohammed Amin Could not agree more. And as I expressed in my own article that I wrote and was released earlier today - we are liberals and us liberals shoul...
  • Lyell Yardarms
    It is an unfashionable opinion but this is where Reform (for example) have a huge advantage over the Liberal Democrats and Greens. Approving, vetting and - y...