'Why London won't listen', The Evening Standard

Wednesday, February 07, 2001

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Why London won't listen; The capital's sole 24-hour news station is struggling. Yet the format is thriving in New York
JAMES SILVER

THESE are turbulent days for the 24-hour rolling news station News Direct 97.3 FM.

Latest audience figures are down across the board, a "radical change" to output has been shelved and staff morale is in the doldrums.

Three weeks ago the radio station, whose editorial content is provided by ITN, was due to undergo a radical change to its format. Through the night and at weekends, News Direct was to ditch its own live broadcast, and instead take an audio feed from ITN's 24-hour television news station. This was due to Londoners' "curious indifference to rolling radio news", according to one insider.

But a week later, the proposed revamp was on hold. No one will officially explain why. Nick Wheeler, ITN Radio's editor-in-chief, will only say: "We've changed our plans." A News Direct spokesman adds: "We can't talk about what's happening just yet."

Whether executives changed their plans of their own accord or had their minds changed for them by the Radio Authority is open to debate. In one version of events, the regulator found out about the changes only after a tip-off from a disgruntled employee.

The Radio Authority will not confirm or deny that claim. "It is true that if a station wants to change its format, we would need to be consulted first," says a spokeswoman , stiffly. "We are currently in discussions with News Direct regarding its output and this may be regarding change to its format."

Whatever the specifics of News Direct's volte-face, it is not difficult to see why its bosses are panicking.

Last week's Rajar audience figures reveal that in all the key areas - including audience share, weekly reach and average hours per listener - the snapshot is one of decline. In the fourth quarter of last year, reach slipped from 406,000 to 391,000 on the previous quarter and share from 0.8 per cent to 0.7 per cent. And these statistics can't be dismissed as a blip. A year ago, reach was at 470,000 and share at 0.9 per cent.

The inside story at the station appears to be one of cutbacks and penny-pinching; of radio news done on the cheap. Newsroom sources say that audio tracks from ITN's television packages are routinely broadcast without being edited for radio. The result can often be confusing for the listener.

ONE former staffer says: "It's stupid radio; you'd be sitting there despairing. In early 1999, there was still a hard core of serious journalists and a feeling we were being taken seriously by ITN. But gradually, regular staff left and morale fell. There was a sense that you were working on a station that no one except taxi-drivers was listening to. In my opinion, there was not enough money spent on publicity; no one knew we existed.

"Salaries were very low too. Old hands were on about Pounds 35,000, while experienced new recruits got just Pounds 20,000. Staff numbers dropped from around 25 full-timers to around 10 plus freelances. And there was a great sense that there was nowhere to move to within ITN, that there was a glass ceiling which made it difficult to get into TV. So there was no incentive to stay."

But all that was supposed to change towards the end of 1999 when the highflying news director of New York's rolling news station 1010 WINS, Steve Holt, was poached by News Direct.

Holt's signing was meant to jumpstart the station, and, for a while, says the former staffer, morale perked up. "We thought Holt's arrival meant that management was willing to spend money to turn the station around, and we were optimistic. But after a couple of months, when no investment followed, it became clear that nothing was going to change. In fact, things got worse."

Holt's colleagues in New York say they were shocked when he quit their station for News Direct. Ben Mevorach, Holt's successor, says "The position of news director at WINS is considered one of the most powerful and influential jobs in the radio industry in this country so, yes, we were very surprised when he announced that he was leaving. I guess he was at a point in his life where he was seeking new challenges."

The 1010 WINS slogan - "You give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world" - has been providing New Yorkers with 24-hour news since 1965 and has been established since the 1930s. Owned by Infinity, the radio division of CBS Broadcasting - which in turn is on the brink of merging with Viacom - WINS's healthy audience of 2.4 million gives the lie to the idea that rolling news cannot be both popular and profitable in a cut-throat radio market.

Where News Direct competes against the BBC's services (especially Radio 4's news programmes, and Radio 5 Live), 1010 WINS faces a plethora of "big gun" speech-based rivals. "New York supports three news stations, three talk stations, several Spanish language and two all-sports stations," explains Mevorach. "It is also the home base for the dominant nationally syndicated shows like Rush Limbaugh, Dr Laura Schlessinger and Howard Stern."

IN the dogfight for listeners, Mevorach says format is everything. "People perceive us much like they do their utilities. When you turn on a light, you expect to have the bulb go on. When you turn on WINS you expect traffic every 10 minutes on the "ones", weather every four minutes and so on. It's tailor-made for New Yorkers, who by nature are fast-paced, loud, no-nonsense, don't-waste-my-time kind of people. Our product mirrors that lifestyle."

In stark contrast with News Direct, WINS is well-resourced. Mevorach has an editorial staff of 50, including seven fulltime reporters pounding the streets. Staff turnover is very low ("most have been here for 10 years or longer"). Almost all its news is self-generated, although it does use supplementary material from ABC Radio and CNN.

Asked how he would explain the apparent failure of rolling news in London, Mevorach replies: "I can't stress enough how important it is to give this format time to penetrate a market. It is also critical to have owners and management who believe in the viability of the format. Rolling news is expensive to operate and too often owners panic when they don't see the results on their bottom line. It just doesn't work that way. Never has and never will."

(The Evening Standard, February 7th 2001)

Posted by James Silver - On Wednesday, February 07, 2001

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