Page 9 - Newspaper of the Future Case Study

JP appointed Ashley Highfield as CEO in November, 2011. Although he had
no experience of the newspaper industry he did have a strategic vision for the
future of the business which involved transformational change, implementing
a number of strategic initiatives focused on improving efficiencies and saving
costs such as raising the cover price of many of JPs 170 local and regional
newspapers as well as turning five local daily papers into weekly titles. In
addition the number of contact centres would be reduced from 14 to 2,
consolidating the printing sites from seven to three, taking out layers of senior
management and reducing the overall numbers of staff.

In 2012, Highfield’s "Vision for 2020" predicted the publisher's digital audience
would grow from 10m to 20m, while its print audience would shrink from 11m
to 8m over the same period. He also predicted that by 2020 all sites would be
"digital first" and that "few daily print products" would remain. Moreover, "a
world where our consumption came from mobile as much as anywhere else,
where digital audiences outnumbered print, and where as much as half our
content was contributed or submitted." Highfield.

His vision however, was brought forward to 2015, “as every one of those
predictions has been realised, they are actually coming true now, or will in
2015, not 2020.” Highfield. For example in 2015 as much as 25 per cent of
advertising revenues came from digital in certain publishing units, up from 7
per cent in 2012.

Under the plan, editorial content would be produced 50/50 between journalists
and readers and revenue would also be split half and half between print and
digital.

In addition Highfield aimed to create iPad versions of leading titles as well as

launching a series of websites that would bring together under themes content
from all Johnston’s titles.

JP had also identified 59 titles it considered to be "sub-core" and potentially
subject to disposal as it looked to pay down debt and focus on digital and
“preferred markets”. Three other product categories were identified and
incorporated into the strategy as of "uber" importance, "primary" importance,
and "core" importance.