Think Different: How A New Owner Must Revitalise The Indie

imageIts publisher is knocking a fifth off its 2009 profits forecast and reports say new Evening Standard owner Alexander Lebedev and DMGT could tie up with its Independent newspapers. Nothing’s confirmed, but whoever buys the titles will need to make some changes if the Indie is to remain a viable title – here’s our prescription…

Be yourself in the radical niche: Many assume The Guardian and Guardian.co.uk are the only reads in town for liberally-minded UK readers — but while that site has been the market leading UK newspaper site for several years now, that means there’s a niche for genuinely forthright, independent and sometimes radical commentary of the sort even Comment Is Free doesn’t cover. There are both readers and advertisers out there who want to be seen as different from their peers: the Indie is, for example, militantly atheist scientist Richard Dawkins’ paper of choice. Long-standing Indie editor Simon Kelner, now the titles’ managing director, proudly called his paper a “viewspaper” and the paper should bring some of its campaigning spirit to its site, as embodied in its trademark single-issue front page splashes.

Go low-cost by striking more partnerships: Conscious of its chronically low resources compared to bigger rivals like Guardian.co.uk and Times Online (Independent.co.uk has just 10 staff), the Indie has signed a string of smart content aggregation and social media deals to bring readers in and keep them there. Video feed deals with France 24, Al Jazeera and documentary maker Joiningthedocs complement the site’s own YouTube channel while its own answer to Comment Is Free, the Independent Minds blog portal, came in partnership with LiveJournal. There are commercial deals, too, such as one to show the Bebo Originals travel series the Gap Year. The Indie can’t outgun rivals with a broader range of original content so it needs to look high and low for relevant, profitable partnerships with like-minded people and companies.

Go for quality, not quantity: With 10.43 million monthly unique users in April, after a very slow start the Indie is now quickly growing its online audience, currently at a rate of more than 60 percent year-on-year. But it shouldn’t be chasing the big, meaningless metrics when its strength since its 1986 launch has been not in mass-market appeal but going against the Fleet Street pack (the daily newspaper only sells just over 200,000 copies). As editorial director Jimmy Leach told me in January, the paper could spend time and money on online marketing to boost traffic, but it’s unsure what the real benefits would be.

Either ditch the paywall dream, or invest heavily: Parent INM’s CEO-to-be Gavin O’Reilly is another newspaper boss keen to raise the online newspaper paywall flag in the hope that someone, somewhere, at some point, will make it viable for sites to charge for access. But the Indie site will surely need to evolve far beyond its current form and develop a range of content USPs — across text, video and audio — to justify charging. That investment — in facilities, staff and resources — is not one that the cost-conscious and recently decimated Indie can afford. But maybe a new owner, perhaps a well-known Russian billionaire, would be willing to make that investment…

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