AFR falls four days behind The Oz
On Saturday, we woke up to discover that Wall Street had suffered a big fall.
Not only that, but there’d been significant announcements from Google, American Express and Nokia. So for those interested in financial stuff, there was a fair bit to catch up on.
However, The Australian Financial Review, Australia’s “daily” financial paper was on a break – not returning until after Australia Day. An “Australia Day bumper edition” covering January 22-26 will have to suffice.
Now I understand that newspapers have it tough. And there’s not much incentive to Fairfax to publish if newsstands are going to be down and there won’t be many ads.
But on the odd chance that a regular AFR reader was buying a paper to find out what was going on in the markets, the likelihood is that they picked up a copy of The Australian instead. And found some pretty good coverage inside from its News Corp sister title the Wall Street Journal.
They may even have repeated the pattern on Monday.
Newspapers are about habits.
I suspect that by the time we see the next AFR on Wednesday, a handful more readers may have crossed over to The Oz.
Why do the words death spiral come to mind?
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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The Australian loves to beat up the Fin over this. And in some cases I reckon it’s unjustified – does a business paper REALLY need to publish the week of Christmas, Easter, etc?
But in this case – ditching three editions because of a public holiday on a TUESDAY – that’s pretty poor form, Fairfax. And it’ll cost you.
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Tedious. You sound like a mouthpiece for the Oz.
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Yes, Brent.
High praise indeed for the Oz – being a daily paper and coming out every day.
Sadly it should be quite a low bar to jump. The Australian jumped it, and the AFR fell on its backside. It’s not about the Australian looking good; it’s about the Fin/ Fairfax taking a short term view.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
As a regular reader of the Fin Review I made the switch during this period to stay on top of things. As much as I bemoan News Corp, I agree with Tim’s views. Might be picking up The Aus a bit more often from now on..
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This is one of those instances where Fairfax management simply don’t get the role of news and newspapers because they don’t have any ink in their veins. Compare this to News, where Murdoch and his management culture is inky through and through.
I disagree with Murdoch’s politics and business practices but you have to hand it to him – he is investing in his products and mastheads, and making smart decisions (such as standardising national section editors and section editorial such as food, travel, TV, technology and motoring across his metro dailies) while Fairfax dithers over cost-control and cost-cutting.
Letting a blue-chip business daily vanish for a few days might have looked good to Fairfax management on paper, or more likely on an Excel spreadsheet, but they didn’t have the sense to realise they were going against the very raison d’etre of the Fin and ignoring the reason The Fin reader _are_ readers of The Fin.
Maybe News didn’t make as much money as usual from the decision to continue publishing as usual throughout the break, but Murdoch’s guys are smart enough to know that part of the ‘contract’ with the reader is delivering daily what they want, and that what you lose on the swings you make up on the roundabouts.
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Having no vested interest I can tell you atht as someone who gets the Oz, AFR and SMH delivered to my desk every working day (and living in Sydney) I have shifted my main read from the SMH to the OZ over the past 6 months. I now frequently dont even bother to open the SMH – and only for a quick scan.
The Oz’s syndicated columns from US & UK are a particularly strong point of difference.
As I skipped work on Monday I did’t notice the AFR absence but agree that is poor form.
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