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The Chief executive of the Guardian Media Group, Carolyn McCall, talks to Sky's Joel Hills about the challenges faced by her media businesses as the economic climate worsens.
We're heading into the downturn, um, how is this affecting your group and the way it does business?
Well, I think that actually there has been so much structural change in media that we’ve actually been grappling with change, for quite a long time. Er, I think what was happening now, is that we got a very severe down turn and I think it’s gonna get worse next year. And so on top of the structural change we are dealing with kinda very negative economic conditions. So I think all media is being affected by this. I think what’s interesting about this is that audiences aren't affected. In fact, audiences are growing, so the issue is how you capitalize on that, how you continue to grow your businesses and your quality audiences while ad revenue is going to be severely affected. I think also there are different affects depending on what business you are in. So, if your are consumer-oriented in terms of the display advertising, that's been hit very badly. I think if your are in business-to-business, you are much more resilience. And you are dependent on different revenue streams. So, actually as a group, certainly, the Guardian Media Group is in better shape as result of diversifying in portfolio of having business-business in e-map, having trade media group which is predominant in digital business. Um, and certainly, our consumer businesses are all being affected more.
One part of the businesses that has traditionally lost money and continually lose money are the titles Observer and Guardian. Last year, I think, 25million pounds have been lost. How sustainable is that over the long term, presumably cost to lose money at paramount level indefinitely.
Well, all quality newspapers, I don't think there is any one quality newspaper that actually makes money, and all the others lose a lot of money. Times loses money, Independent Group loses money, and we are no exceptions to them. So I think you have to ask yourself why is them. That is partly because quality journalism is extremely expensive. If you are going to put your own reporters into Iraq, if you are gonna and you'er gonna cover the world as you want to cover it independent accurate reporting, you are going to have to pay for it, and I think what's happening is that we are also sustaining digital businesses, which are, have been in growth. So we are having to develop and capitalize those businesses. So you've got two different media businesses actually, which are now beginning to integrate. And I think we are gonna have to look at the economics so far, integrated businesses, as we go forward, are kinda be very responsible at how we size those businesses, if you see what I mean. I'm fortunate and our group is fortunate, because our entire purpose is about the sustained ability of the Guardian, the long term sustained ability.
All you have said is how you see exactly what you are enjoying. You exist to provide the money to keep those titles...
We exist, in order to keep the independence of the Guardian both financial and editorial independence. That is our reason for being. So all our activity, our profitable regional papers, the radio stations, e-map, trade media is all about profit maximization in order to sustain the future of Guardian. So we have a very different model to a lot of other publishers, or media groups. And it's a very healthy model, I think, to have especially in the downturn, because we are able to take long term decisions. Why not success about quality reporting? Of course we have to be granular, of course, we have to perform ,but we can take long term decisions, which I think it / very difference / to other media groups.
