Murdoch launches Glasgow printing plant

Rupert Murdoch today opened News International’s new printing plant in Glasgow.

Alongside the First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, Murdoch cut the ribbon to the Eurocentral plant, which the company claims houses the largest and fastest press in the world. The plant will will print Scottish editions of The Sun, The Times, the News of the World and the Sunday Times.

The plant is the first stage of a £650m project to open new plants for News International. Other sites in the pipeline include Knowsley, near Liverpool, and Enfield in North London.

The plant will be operated by Newsprinters (Eurocentral) Ltd, part of News International’s new printing division.

The company said today it hoped to generate additional revenue by offering the plant’s large printing capacity to third-party publishers - Newsprinters has already entered into a long-term contract to print The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph.

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Sharp Appointed City Reporter at Herald

The Herald has a new City reporter, recruited from London-based financial publishers, Citywire.

Remaining in London is Tim Sharp, whose career has also seen him work at the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph and the Stonehaven newspaper, the Mearns Leader.

He was at Citywire for two years.

Source: All Media Scotland

Donald for Sunday Herald?

Spike hears the Sunday Herald has a new business editor lined up, to succeed Ken Symon, who has joined a PR and public affairs consultancy.

Colin Donald, business correspondent at The Scotsman, is understood to be joining the paper, with Symon having left recently for McGarvie Morrison Media.

Source: All Media Scotland

New Ways of Working Unveiled by Herald Group

Between 15 and 20 redundancies are being predicted at the Herald group of newspapers, following the planned introduction of a new production system that will see, among other things, a central news hub operating for all three of the group’s titles: The Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times.

Also on the cards is a single website for all the titles, with the decision being made that, with the exception of exclusives, all stories will be put on to the internet whenever they happen, instead of having to wait (as is the case now) until after the newspapers have been printed.

More from: All Media Scotland

Radical Agenda Aim of New Newspaper

A new newspaper - “with a republican and libertarian agenda” - is launching tomorrow in Edinburgh, with contributions from broadcaster, Lesley Riddoch, and Andy Wightman - author of Who Owns Scotland - appearing in its debut issue. In it, Wightman argues that the ultimate community buy-out would be to unseat the Queen from Balmoral, which he contends the Windsor's don't actually own.

More from: All Media Scotland

Record on Song with Revamped Website

It had been something of a soft launch until Friday, when the Daily Record splashed with an exclusive interview with Scottish band, Wet Wet Wet.

Supporting a two-page article in the newspaper was video footage on the Record’s new-look website.

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Edinburgh student freesheet to launch

Scotland's leading young journalists have hatched an ambitious plan to launch a free student newspaper in a Berliner format across five universities in Edinburgh.
The Journal, a 32-page full-colour newspaper, will print about 14,000 copies each fortnight and aims to reach 60,000 students - making it Scotland's largest university newspaper.

Copying a distribution method used by London freesheets, The Journal will hire people to hand out copies to students at campuses of the University of Edinburgh, Napier University, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh College of Art and Heriot-Watt University.

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DailyRecord.co.uk relaunch focuses on interactivity

The Daily Record has relaunched its website with a stronger focus on interactive, multi media and user-generated content.

DailyRecord.co.uk now features video and audio clips as well as image galleries and blogs while readers can comment on and rate stories and vote on issues.

Readers can submit their own stories, video and audio clips while each article has keyword tags to enable readers to access find related stories.

The Scottish tabloid's new site uses the template that Trinity Mirror has been rolling out across its regional newspaper web sites.

More from: UK Press Gazette

Sales Gap Widens Slightly Between Sun and Record

The sales gap between the Scottish Sun and the Daily Record has widened slightly, according to the latest figures.

The ‘ABCs’ for September reveal an average net circulation of 411,753 for the Scottish Sun - as opposed to 409,034 in August - and 373,702 for the Daily Record - compared to 375,235 the previous month.

More from All Media Scotland

Pastures New for Evening Times Trio

This week sees the departure of three stalwarts at the Evening Times, with one headed for China.

The Sun is the destination for deputy chief sub-editor, John Rathbone, while subbing and page planning is the expected role on the Inverness Courier for internet and news sub-editor, John Davidson.

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Newsquest's Glasgow division is expected to annouce reduced profits for 2006

Newsquest’s Glasgow Division, publisher of the Herald, Sunday Herald and Glasgow Evening Times, is expected to report operating profits of £22.9 million for last year – down £1.5 million on 2005.

The published accounts are not available through Companies House until 31 October but the Evening Times and the Johnston Press-owned Scotsman today reported that they show an after tax profit of £17.6 million. Some £15.6 million of this has been paid to American publishing giant Gannett, Newsquest’s parent company.

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Herald Publishers Heading for Increased Profit?

According to numbers leaked to allmediascotland.com, the arm of Newsquest that specifically publishes The Herald, Sunday Herald and the Evening Times is scheduled to have made a £24 million pre-tax profit last year, the company’s financial year coinciding with the calendar one.

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Trinity Mirror launches free business title for Scotland

Trinity Mirror has launched its first free business publication which will be available in print and online.

Business7 will target 20,000 “work hard, play hard ambitious young business professionals” in Scotland and will be available for pickup from targeted businesses and key commuter points including main line rail stations and airports.

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Trinity Mirror: ‘Digital drive will boost revenues’

Trinity Mirror this week said its “technology-led” strategy for regional newspapers retained by the company would focus on driving revenues rather than saving costs.

Titles which did not achieve the necessary asking price include the Birmingham Mail, Coventry Telegraph, South London Press and several weeklies in Hounslow.

Director of corporation communications Nick Fullagar, who sits on Trinity’s executive committee, said: “The new technology-led model means more web-based interaction allowing, for instance, advertisers to have direct access to placing their own advertising at a time that suits them.

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Now Trinity Mirror is in deep trouble

We have been consistently told that Trinity Mirror's disposal programme is on track, despite an announcement that it would realise less than originally expected. Now comes Katie Allen's revelation that the company is about to take its Midlands regional titles off the block because they have failed to attract high enough offers.

The group's ceo, Sly Bailey, had promised unhappy shareholders a windfall. Now they face a further plunge in the share price from the already low point of Friday's closing number, 412p.

Journalists at its national titles - the Daily and Sunday Mirror and The People - are not blame. The journalists at its Scottish division - the Daily Record and Sunday Mail - are not to blame.

Bailey may have done her best, but her best has obviously not been good enough.

But it doesn't blind me to the fact that the current board members have to take responsibility for the current state of the company. Expect changes at the top very soon.

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Trinity Mirror chief defends failure of Midlands sale

Trinity Mirror chief executive Sly Bailey has defended the newspaper group's failure to offload its Midlands titles, saying shareholders will support the decision not to sell at just any price.

The publisher of the Mirror announced today that it was selling the Racing Post for £170m to Irish private equity firm FL Partners but it was keeping its regional newspapers in the Midlands, including the Birmingham Post and other titles in the south-east.

More from Business Guardian

New Sports Mag for North Scotland

A new monthly sports magazine for north and north-east Scotland sports fans has hit the newstands.

‘pitchside’ is an 84-page, A4, full-colour glossy published
in Aberdeen by Dave McGinlay, with an initial print run of 6000.

The magazine is contract-printed by The Herald’s publishers, Newsquest, and has a £3 cover price.

More from All Media Scotland