FLEET STREET

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23887, 15 August 1939, Page 10

FLEET STREET

NEWSPAPER SIDELIGHTS HOW MORTON DISCOVERED ENGLAND CIRCULATION DETAILS Sidelights on Fleet street were given in an address to the Wellington Rotary Club by Mr F. W. Doidge, M.P., who, from 1918 till about four years ago, was concerned in the management of some of the most successful papers published there. Mr Doidge recalled the days when Wellington newspapers used to send their men out to meet the sailing vessels on their arrival from England to get the files of English papers, so that, after the use of scissors and paste, they might announce the next morning " Latest News from England." That news was three months old! How different it was to-day, when, 10 minutes after stumps were drawn in a test cricket match played in Sydney, full news of the game was on sale in Piccadilly; and, within an hour after Joe Louis had won the world boxing championship, there were actually pictures of the fight in the London papers, sent by radio. . The national papers of London covered practically the whole of Great Britain. Such papers had their Manchester and Glasgow editions. Yet 50 years ago the circulation of the whole of the London papers did not exceed 250.000; to-day it was probably near 10.000.000.

The Daily Express, of which he had been a director, had the top circulation of 2,500,000 a day. Every day it consumed 20 acres of Canadian forest. The Daily Herald had a circulation, of 2,000,000. and below that came the News Chronicle and the Daily Telegraph. The Times, which still wielded great political power, had a net sale of 270,000. Another fine paper in the same category, the Manchester Guardian, had a circulation of probably less than 100,000. Boosting Circulation Mr Doidge spoke of the various devices to boost circulation. In the case of the Express, relatives of registered readers who were killed in an accident could claim £SOO. At cost £150,000 to keep that fund going. Then, having got the circulation, the papers had to hold it. One way was to secure popular writers. He instanced one man's rise to fame and fortune; in 1925 they had on the staff a young man named H. V. Morton, in receipt of £ls a week. In August,, when there was no news, the editor, Beverley Baxter, one day came across Morton mooning about the office, and said to him: "Why don't you get out and do something? " Morton protested that there was no news to be got, and he had no assignment. What was he to do? "Go out and discover England " was the bland retort. With that, Morton got a rickety old motor car and started a tour of England, sending in an article a day. Those articles became so interesting that at last a publisher approached 1 the paper for permission to republish them in book form. That was how "In Search of England " was written. The book sold 100,000 copies—and the Express found itself paying Morton a salary of £3OOO a year. Morton was now on the Daily Herald drawing £SOOO a year. Rise of Edgar Wallace Another instance of the sort occurred in 1928. They had on the staff of the Sunday Express a sporting writer named Edgar Wallace, whom they had to part with because they thought he was not exactly pulling his weisht. However, one of his stories made into the play, " The Ringer," was an immediate success, and soon stories that editors had declined were being hunted up and published, and Wallace was bein" paid fabulous sums for serials. Through one success on the stage he had jumped into being a big money-maker. On one occasion Mr Doidge asked him to write a story for him. "It will cost you £2000," said Wallace. The speaker agreed, and within a week Wallace had turned in an 80,000 word story.

Mr Doidge also mentioned H. G. Wells and Arnold Bennett as writers the public wanted. He had once made a contract for Bennett to write an article, the payment for which was to b" Is 6d a word. The total cost came to £75, a cheque for which was posted to the writer. It was returned, with a polite note from Bennett's secretary, stating that there was an error in calculation, as the commas, semi-colons and full stops had not been included. If a paper depended on the proceeds of sales there would be no profit at all, said Mr Doidge. A 24-page paper would show a loss. It was the advertising that made it worth while. The Express charged £IOOO a page, and there was an occasion when, in one week, the amount of £IOO,OOO was taken in advertisements. Mr Doidge also spoke interestinglv about the various newspaper groups and their genesis, and the part high finance played in many of the newspaper mergers.