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Keeping the faith

The year was 1859 and Major Lawrence Knox, a man in his early twenties, took advantage of a recent repeal of newspaper taxes to launch The Irish Times.

News publishing was a competitive sector with ten national Irish papers in circulation that year. Today, the Irish Times is the only newspaper of that era to survive. It is a newspaper that has evolved as Ireland has evolved.

To survive 150 years in publishing is no mean feat and as the first decade of the 21^st Century nears its end many media observers acknowledge that the years ahead will prove to be some of the most difficult ever faced by print publishers. Maeve Donovan acknowledges the challenges ahead but is also bullish as to the future of The Irish Times, now a large media company with tentacles in regional press, magazines, radio and of course online.

Donovan recently forecast a €20 million drop in advertising revenue for this financial year and the company announced pay cuts for staff, including senior management. "By reducing our costs at this early stage, we are giving The Irish Times the best possible chance of coming through this recession in good shape," says Donovan.

Before we sat down to conduct the interview I was brought to the top floor of the Tara St. building, which is a canteen and not the executive offices as one might expect. This shows a certain egalitarian position in that everyone working in the company can enjoy the open vistas of Dublin afforded by the building's highest room.

After the photos for this interview were taken Maeve Donovan pointed across to a view of the old Irish Times building on D'Olier Street.

I asked if the story of the old lady who lived in an apartment of the old building was true?

"Yes, that's true. I remember being on the phone in the sales department and we could hear her climbing the stairs to her apartment. It was quite surreal. But then a lot about that old building was quite surreal, you could go for a year without meeting some of your colleagues. It wasn't a very open building, it had too many nooks and crannies."

The new Irish Times building is the opposite of the old, it's a modern exercise in glass, steel and sunlight.

Dublin city's skyline is not what it was two years ago. Most of the tall cranes have gone. The boom has burst and with it the economy. The media world, so long in denial, is now admitting that this is the worst economic landscape it has faced in living memory. Confidence has dried up, commercial spending has wilted and the consequences for all in media and marketing are reduced incomes and in the worst cases redundancies. It is difficult to be optimistic at a time like this.

"This is the tipping point," says Donovan, "effectively we're in this transition that's been taking place for a number of years but has been exacerbated by global economic difficulties. I've never seen anything quite like it."

While this interview was conducted before the pay cuts at the Irish Times were announced, Donovan admitted to the difficulties ahead without going into specifics.

"A situation like this takes you back to what the real fundamentals of your business are about. We're fortunate in that we're drawing on tremendous history, a brand with exceptional provenance, and you start to go back to that as a foundation and look to how you can build again."

Competing, sharing and consolidation

By her own admission Donovan has been with the paper ‘forever and a day' having joined in 1977 from ICC. "I started in ad sales and over the years have done just about every job there is to do on the commercial side of the newspaper. I've been involved in advertising, circulation, distribution, marketing, and then general management."

Formally appointed managing director in January 2002, Donovan's first couple of years were not easy. "I became managing director during the last economic crisis so on one level my skills set as a manager were honed in difficult period of leadership and I am drawing on a lot of that now. But for all of that the extremity of that time this is infinitely greater."

Seven years ago many of the transition issues still affecting newspapers today were becoming evident. The online and mobile arenas and the changing formats were already big topics and today they are an integral part of newspaper management.

"When we talk about transition we're not talking about something of recent origin we're talking about a decade of change in the newspaper industry, but dealing with the fall out of all this against such a severe economic recession adds a dimension that we haven't seen before."

In a review of Mark O'Brien's latest book ‘The Irish Times - a history', the assistant editor of The Irish Times Fintan O'Toole said: "Of all the institutions that emerged from the Irish 19th century and survived into the 21st, it [The Irish Times] is the one that bears most comparison to a chameleon."

While O'Toole was referring to its political leanings and its various editorial ‘stances' throughout its history, the statement could also apply to its position in the commercial world and how the paper adapted to the changing commercial landscape.

The Irish Times is nothing if not a survivor and that survival has a touch of ‘the David Bowies' about it - the ability to re-invent itself to keep in tune with this island's society as it develops. To survive, newspapers and other media must be organic in their evolution, a sentiment which is very much to the fore of Donovan's thinking.

"I'm very conscious of drawing on a skills set that's about re-organisation and change and creating a vision for the future and we're having to do it all over again. Change in old traditional organisations can be particularly challenging because such organisations tend to be proud of their history and while it's a great loyal strength the filp side is that they are more inward looking and need to be forced to look outward.

Even more important as a manager you have to step outside and look back in with the eyes of the customer and the eyes of the competitor."

On the mention of competitors I asked about the reported move by INM and The Irish Times to merge the morning free sheets Metro and Herald AM. "I'm not going to comment on it at all," says Donovan before adding that this is "the year of consolidation where media is concerned".

The issue of printing then arose. We have enormous print capacity for such a small country. Does Donovan see a time when such resources will be shared by publishers?

"Shared services in the newspaper industry go back many decades in the EU, the US and the UK, where activities such as printing tend to be shared. The fact that such a venture doesn't exist here probably arises from the intensity of competition in this small market. Though back in the late 80s there was a putative attempt to create a Print Co. but this floundered, probably due to such intense competition. Publishers here look at the areas where they truly compete and where we compete is at the newsstand and in advertising. At a theoretical level this is the front line. Potentially there are opportunities for shared services in other ways. In this day and age we no longer compete in printing terms."

In 1986 The Irish Times began printing the paper in sections and tentatively looked at colour. "It's hard to believe that the paper used to be black and white and without sections. Colour printing transformed the newspaper but I remember our iconic editor Douglas Gageby saying he would carry his first colour piece in the newspaper the day Ian Paisley cut the tape on the border!" The first colour photo in the paper was in fact a picture of Stephen Roche when he won the Tour de France in 1987.

"Colour transformed our fortunes because it suited the development of the property section and the business section. It energised the paper and gave us huge competitive advantage."

Don't lose sight of what you deliver

The rivers of gold that were the property ads and the recruitment ads have dried up. Google and the other search engines have had a major impact on the classifieds industry and advertisers are now much thinner on the ground. Then of course there is the issue of sales houses and agencies banding together to extract ‘better value' from the big Irish publishers and broadcasters. How does Donovan feel about the development of Core Media for example?

"I think it's important to moderate your approach to all these kind of things. What we have to stand over is the value of what we're offering to the person that signs the cheque, the advertiser. It's important for us to do this for The Irish Times to remain the paper that it is. We want to do business with all the players that are there but we expect all the intermediaries to come to the discussion with a respect for the value that's been delivered on both sides."

Historically The Irish Times did not discount on rate card. Has this changed in the current climate? "We are the same as everyone else, we take an intelligent, pragmatic approach to doing business. You must do business in the current climate. However, it's very important that you don't lose sight of the value of what you're delivering. We deliver a high quality, discernable audience and our advertisers value this."

Trust in the online arena

Any discussion about the future of publishing newspapers eventually turns to the online arena. The Irish Times was in fact the first newspaper in Ireland and the UK and one of the first 30 in the world to establish an internet presence at www.irish-times.ie. The year was 1994 and some technophobes were already predicting the death of print publications.

These predictions proved to be nonsense. Book sales have in fact soared worldwide since the birth of the web and newspapers remain the most trusted of sources in an information world now swamped by the blogosphere.

"When people say traditional publishers must leave their traditional ways at the door before entering the online arena I think that's not quite true. Traditional values are fundamental to this new arena. The Irish Times is about integrity, accuracy, independence and leadership, which a lot of the web is not. Trust is at the heart of this. The most trusted brands will carry through and thrive. Discernment will always return. Everyone who's followed a dodgy link on Wikipedia knows this. If you don't know with reasonable certainty that the source is sound then you can't believe it - online or offline."

It is 15 years since The Irish Times has been online in one form or another but as yet the physical paper still funds the enterprise. Why haven't the major publishers found a way to make real money from their online products?

"If you carry this question to its logical conclusion you would say there should be much more value placed on online advertising. I think that this notion that online advertising should be cheap is extraordinary. The value is in its accountability and it's the most accountable medium there is and yet has the lowest CPM rates."

While the last five years have been a ‘land grab' by the publishers in the online field, and the commercial reality of that world is uncertain, it has taken place "to a backdrop where we all intuitively understand there is substantial value there".

Donovan believes the one big issue coming down the tracks is how publishers value their online audiences.

"Our key issue is to enrich the online experience for our audience. We still believe there are opportunities on the print side. Publishers globally are felling their way in the online space. When Rupert Murdoch doesn't have the solutions it speaks volumes."

Donovan sits on the board of the National Group of the World Association of Newspapers. This group meets four times a year and Donovan says she is "struck by the extent to which we are all feeling our way in the online space".

As the industry starts to question its approach to free content and looks at the relationship between print and online the issue of fast changing technology and shifting consumer web behaviour remains constant.

"One thing we're doing is bringing new thinking into the management of newspapers. In terms of our own management team we're drawing on people from telecoms, people from the online world. The extent to which the development of our products is driven by technology is remarkable, it's the most influential creator of change."

Stretching its digital legs

One resource The Irish Times has that would be the envy of many national institutions is its archive. "It's an astonishing resource," agrees Donovan, "and there are tremendous opportunities for our archive, it's an historic document - one that can be used for enjoyment, research and education."

Asked if the e-learning world is something the company has looked at Donovan says it is. "The Irish Times will go forward ring fenced with a range of activities that are complimentary to its core product. We are developing an interesting business with Ireland.com, a strategy that's based on a portal and localised search. I think the opportunities in local search are very significant. Google has indexed the web and it is so vast so I believe refining searches to local areas will be key in the future."

Another area the company is looking at is social networking. "Ireland.com has the potential to develop within the social networking space. It can join Irish communities in different countries in different ways. There are loads of opportunities. At a time like this you have to be very aggressive in addressing the cost issues within your business and in identifying the aspects of your business to invest in and eliminate waste and focus on growth. These are the times of opportunity."