Page 13 - Newspaper of the Future Case Study

In the case of The Scotsman its website had registered more than three million
unique users prior to the JP acquisition. Post-acquisition JP broke up the

development team of the scotsman.com website, which they lauded at the time
of the takeover, and based the company’s online effort in Peterborough, 300
miles away in the English Midlands. Where once it had been one of the top

sites worldwide on Google its traffic to the relaunched website, scotsman.com
failed as over the following 18 months after the takeover traffic halved.

By December 2015 JP had completed the first phase of its major structural
change, by implementing its Newsroom of the Future. This aimed to increase
digital engagement, and arrest print decline rates, whilst improving operational
efficiencies.

Furthermore, JP started planning the implementation of its Salesforce of the
Future project, with a focus on boosting digital revenues. It achieved £7.6m cost
savings in the first half of 2015, which it claimed offset revenue declines and
funded £2.6m digital investment, a programme it will continue to target.

However, the introduction of the "Newsroom of the Future" initiative which
saw dedicated district reporters merged into pools covering multiple
newspaper titles led to the fear in the industry that as journalists were cut, the
quality of journalistic copy and content would drop.