Alan Rusbridger, John Witherow battle over newspapers

May 19, 2010

By Dan Sabbagh

In the left corner

Candour reigned at last night’s head to head between Alan Rusbridger of The Guardian and John Witherow of The Sunday Times. Listen to the two in debate today on Radio 4′s Media Show at 1.30pm.

Rating:

Here’s a few things we learned from last night’s pre-record — and remember Rusbridger is defending the free to read online newspaper against the News Corp ‘readers must pay’ view. (NB Not all quotes may appear on air due to editing by Her Majesty’s BBC)

The numbers:

John Witherow said that the editorial budget of The Times and The Sunday Times is about £100 million, and it is this budget that is being cut by 10 per cent. (Those who have worked with the figures tell me that splits £60 million for The Times and £40 million for The Sunday Times, but I can’t verify that)
Alan Rusbridger said that The Guardian does about £40 million annually from its digital business, and the current growth rate in revenues is 100 per cent. (But I also know from separate conversations that of that £40 million, or rather £38 million, about £10 million comes from its dating and other non-Guardian newspaper websites).
John Witherow said that traditionally profitable The Sunday Times was still losing money in addition to the normally loss-making Times. Or in his words “because of the extreme recession we are both losing money”.
Rusbriger hinted that the editorial budget at The Guardian and The Observer was a bit lower than his better selling rivals, when he said that if his newspapers digital revenues “doubled or tripled, they’d be paying for the editorial budget”. (I hear, but can’t verify, that the correct figure for the editorial budget of both titles is about £70 million).

The paywall realities:

John Witherow said that The Times and The Sunday Times would “easily” lose 90 per cent of its online audience when the two titles went behind the online £2 a week ‘paywall’ next month. A massive fall.
Alan Rusbridger conceded that if the Times/Sunday Times made a roaring success of the pay wall his newspapers would eventually have to follow suit. “You’d have to be crazy to be fundamentalist about this,” he said. A surprising concession.
John Witherow described his company’s paywall strategy as “a huge challenge…something of a gamble”. So his owners, News Corp, have no idea if it will really work.
Or as Rusbridger put it: “The truth is nobody knows” whether free or pay is the right answer. Yep, but we will soon probably find out.

In the right corner

Why were they being so diplomatic? Was it an overdose of the “I agree with Nick strategy” for the benefit of looking good in front of Radio 4′s listeners? Actually, no, I think it was genuine honesty on both sides, in which neither editor wanted to be backed into a corner saying something that would be quoted back at them a few weeks later when one or the other or both turned out to be wrong. Which, when you think about it, is quite revealing too.

And when it came to the problem of competing with a free, online news service from the BBC it was..

Alan Rusbridger (surprisingly) who was the man who said the Corporation’s activities were “a pain in the neck”, while
John Witherow said, much more judiciously, that BBC news was “a pretty decent meal lacking a bit of spice” and adding that The Sunday Times “can be a bit of chilli spice” for the reader in search of stimulation.

It wasn’t at all obvious that either man won, but neither was aiming to. At this pivotal moment in newspaper history, both know that the stakes are so high that neither can afford to be overconfident one way or the other….

PS Check out George Brock’s similar, thoughtful take on the debate here…

++See some pix of The Times’s new digital look here++