Who said this,
“Stabilise. Revitalise. Grow”,
Here's a clue. It was said in 2003 by a leading media executive.
Now, next question. Who said this,
"Stabilise. Revitalise. Grow". It was said by a leading media executive in 2009.
Thats one mystery solved. Sly Bailey is Tim Weller in drag. Or possibly the other way around.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=9dc51b3e-5e0e-4a5c-b231-88fed466ae91)
Labels: Sly Bailey, Tim Weller
posted by Businessmediablogger @ 9:55 am
3 comments
In spirit of fairness, Tim Weller claims,
"Totally stiched up by STimes, I should know bettern I never said "I am pleased to be shot of Private Equity" I said very happy with new deal" on a Tweet yesterday.
Those who eat with the devil should use long spoons
Labels: Incisive Media, Tim Weller
posted by Businessmediablogger @ 10:20 am
0 comments
The general rise in business confidence filled the pages of the Sunday newspapers business sections at the weekend. Share prices have risen in the last few weeks reflecting a growing mood that the worst is over. This is no time for media owners to breath a sigh of relief however.
Even if we accept that this is the bottom of the cycle, it will be at least a year before there is any recovery in the recruitment market. If display advertising recovers at all it will be slow and never to the levels we have previously seen. The demand for online solutions has not gone away and the the revenue models for thes businesses is for most media companies unproven, and even when it is proven its scale will be smaller than the old print model.
Incisive's Tim Weller was speculating at the FIPP conference that the days of the controlled circulation model are numbered, Rupert Murdoch has postulated that his business will move to paid content model (It is often unwise to bet against Murdoch - but surely this hope over experience) Thomson Reuters are veeling confident in their future, and the events model for the likes of UBM is not yet a busted flush and Reeds high value infomation model is dull but solid. But let nobody think that all is well.
Check you business out against these simple questions,
1) Does your business have a lot of debt?
2) Does your business rely on print advertising for more than 30% of its revenue?
3) Is your online revenue less than 25% of your total revenue?
4) Is your total revenue/employee less than £100k/year
5) Do you have the same proportion of your turnover as overhead as you had last year?
If you answer yes to all more than three questions then there is considerable pain yet to be felt.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=9027a14c-6c53-4398-9851-b805f4a91985)
Labels: Incisive Media, rupert Murdoch, Tim Weller, UBM
posted by Businessmediablogger @ 9:09 am
3 comments
Incisive Media has got into a very public spat with the pensions regulator. According to a statement by CEO Tim Weller, a junior journalist was threatened with jail, by phone, unless she revealed her sources for the story.
The original story is here. My understanding is that the facts of the story are not disputed. The pensions regulator argues that "restricted information" has been misused.
In his robust defence of the journalist, Weller says,
"The right of journalists to protect their sources is vital if the media is to be able to do its job properly," Here, here.
I am in no position to argue the point of law. But here are my thoughts. The right of a journalist to protect sources is not absolute. A matter of national security for example might lead both morally and legally to a journalist revealing a source. So we cannot defend the journalist simply by getting on our high horse. The question we must answer is a moral and legal one. In this particular circumstance is it right for the journalist to protect her source? First, is the public interest served by the publication of the story? Second, does publication compromise the possible future prosection of a criminal offence?
The regulator relies on the Pensions Act 2004 in which clause 72 states,
"The Regulator may, by notice in writing, require any person to whom subsection (2) applies to produce any document, or provide any other information,"
The Act also prohibits the release of "restricted information". I cannot offer a legal opinion, but it seems to me that if any offence has been committed, it is by the person who has released the information - not the journalist - and in any event it would have to be demonstrated that the information was "restricted" and that the release of the source by the journalist was in the public interest.
Second, the clause allowing the regulator to demand documents etc, appears in the legislation in the section about investigation of premises and so on. It seems clear that the intent of the law was to enable the regulator to demand access to documents held by pension companies it was investigating, not journalists to whom information about an investigation may have been leaked.
In any event, the core facts of the matter are readily ascertainable from the public record for as the original story says,
"The company no longer appears on the regulator’s approved panel of independent trustee firms listed on its website."
In other words, the action taken by the regulator is visible to all. The matter at dispute is the access the journalist appears to have had to "restricted documents".
Morally and in my worthless opinion, Weller is right. On this occasion, the journalist ought to be able to protect her source.
There is precedent. Many years ago a trainee journalist at what was then Morgan Grampian ended up in court to prtoect a source, and lost being fined £5000, and in a case between Elton John and The Express in 1990, Lord Justice Wolf said in his summary;
"When orders were to be made requiring journalists to depart from their normal professional standards of confidentiality for their sources, the merits of their doing so in the public interest had to be clearly demonstrated. The minimum requirement was that other avenues to find the source had been explored". In the Elton John case the court again ruled that the source should be revealed, for reasons not relevant to this case.
It seems to me, that at this early point in the Incisive example, de minimus, it is for the pension regulator to demonstrate that it has made efforts to trace the source by other means, and that identification of the source is in the public interest. The publisher should stand firm.
Labels: Incisive Media, pensions regulator, Tim Weller
posted by Businessmediablogger @ 11:33 am
0 comments
One of our readers asks me to mention this and as the programme looks relevant and timely (even though yours truly isn't on the speaker rosta) I am happy to oblige;
"It's the annual conference of the Specialised Information Publishers Association (SIPA) at the Tower Hotel, London E1 on 8-9 July.
Keynote speakers include Tim Weller, CEO of Incisive Media talking on 'narrow and deep' publishing; David Worlock of Outsell Inc, on the state of the industry and the future for paid content; and Mark Ragan from Ragan Communications in the US on taking his products from print to online.
So that will be Tim saying business media is great, David saying its all about workflow and I have no idea who Mark Ragan is. Still it looks like fun. Lots of workshops and interactive stuff and interesting if only to see which of the speakers really understands just what is going on.
More stuff on the event here,
Labels: david warlock, mark ragan, sipa, Tim Weller
posted by Businessmediablogger @ 4:20 pm
0 comments
Labels: CMPi, Incisive Media, Tim Weller
posted by Businessmediablogger @ 8:09 am
1 comments
Labels: Bernard Gray, CMP, David Gilbertson, PPA, RBI, Tim Weller
posted by Businessmediablogger @ 11:52 am
0 comments
Business to business commentary for a 21st century media world. Analysis of business magazines and business media, the impact of search, the web and the digital economy.
