BUSINESS NEWS IS BEING “SQUEEZED OUT”

Look what’s happening to Britain’s regional news media.

Local and regional newspapers are contracting: the Birmingham Post and Bath Chronicle have moved from daily to weekly; the Western Daily Press and Western Morning News are merging; local and regional newspapers are much thinner these days!

That thinning has seen the removal, in many cases, of the business pages.

This trend is not limited to newspapers: local radio providers (both BBC and commercial stations) are also cutting back on business coverage, while ITV is busy getting out of regional news delivery – including its business coverage.

Meanwhile, the South West mirrors other major regions in the growth of new region-wide business magazines and online services.

What does that mean for regional businesses?

• You have to tailor your news stories to appeal to the general-news pages and regional broadcasters’ bulletins (ie, focus on jobs, home-prices, and all the things that ring bells for the average reader/listener/viewer);
• Get to grips with the emerging regional business publications and websites;
• Recognise that you can have far greater impact by achieving coverage in the growing number of online business websites;
• Exploit the very issue that is crippling Britain’s regional news media: you can communicate direct with your target audience via e-publications and exploitation of social media (eg, LinkedIn).

A final thought: five years ago, most regional news media had sponsorship partnerships with various private-sector businesses – more recently, those media have become used to an open cheque-book from their RDA and Business Link. That funding source, I have to believe, will now cease in the run-up to the General Election – re-opening the opportunities for real businesses to restore a relationship with their regional media.

While it has been great for our regional news media to grab these big-spend sponsorships from RDAs and Business Link, it has resulted in:
• A tsunami of pro-Business Link and RDA coverage – most of which is a big turn-off for real business-readers;
• The disappearance of real business-partners for the regional media;
• A dangerous suppression of the regional media’s independence to hold RDAs and Business Links to account.

Let’s be honest: Business Link spends vast sums of our tax-payer money to provide nothing of real value to business: their “business advisers” would not be doing that job, at that salary, if they were any good at running a business!

And, while the RDAs have been great at delivering the valuable job, formerly provided by the English Partnerships agency (ie, engineering public sector investment to attract the private sector into new workspace developments), they have been a complete waste of our tax-payers’ money in building vast empires to embrace a host of vague aspirations.

It’s time for business leaders, and business-owners, to speak out and take part in our political future.

That is Britain’s biggest problem: our politicians know nothing about business, and our business owners have no interest in politics.

The 19th Century was very different: our Parliament featured members who knew about business!