Like any company that has had a change of chief executive in the last couple of years it is difficult to know exactly what is going on. The new CEO could be vastly overestimating the potential cost of phone hacking knowing that he can quietly write back the amount at a later date. In the last year's accounts a huge amount of non-cash items were taken into account which made for huge losses. Some of these were probably unavoidable like provision for the pension deficit but others may provide the basis for much higher profits in the years ahead.
It may be more likely that the local titles are being bled dry because they don't fit with the strategic vision of the new CEO. Trinity Mirror have a dominant position in the larger provincial cities of the UK and have been closing titles across the rest of the country. Reading's newspaper closed down. Whether you believe that they really are switching to digital depends on how cynical you are.
It is clearly wrong that local newspapers have such a low distribution yet remain the primary channel for Councils to communicate with residents. The problem for both Hounslow and Ealing is that if they complain about the small number of copies printed and the lack of meaningful distribution Trinity Mirror could easily turn around and say they are shutting the papers down as they did in Reading and Hammersmith & Fulham. |