NEWSPAPER WAR

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18236, 3 November 1933, Page 5

NEWSPAPER WAR

BATTLE FOR CIRCULATION FIGHT TO A FINISH LONDON, Sept. 14. Three million pounds a year is the cost of the mighty circulation war now proceeding between some of the chief newspapers of Britain. Nothing like it has ever been known in newspaper history. What it involves has just been brought 1o public notice by Sir Elms* ley Carr, who is himself interested in one of London's million-circulation Sunday newspapers and also in several others in the provinces. Tn a condemnation of what he called “insane methods” .he declared recently that never had so ranch money been spent in a hectic race for circulation, and never had personal and professional rivalry been so hit te r. “Money that should be spent on better management and better production of newspapers, and in improving the- lot of the working journalist,” he said, “is now literally thrown away, f am not opposed to any legitimate forin of enterprise, but would anyone admit that a free distribution of washing machines, pyjamas, pillowcases, .silk stockings, fountain pens and even more elaborate gifts such as gold wrist watches is consonant with the traditions of British journalism '! We have given up selling newspapers; we give away mangles and ask the people to accept the newspaper as a favor.” ADVERTISERS IN TWO MINDS Canvassing is just as big an expense as gift-giving. More than 50,000 men and women are now scattered throughout Britain attempting to get new readers for the few London dailies engaged in, circulation hostilities. At the same time, these newspapers arc economising in other directions to meet the strain, and the advertisers are in two minds about the whole thing. Circulation bought in such a way, they fear, is anything but permanent. The chief battles arc waged between newspapers of the three newspaper peers, Lord Beaverbrook, Lord Kothennere and Lord Cam rose. The Labor Daily Herald, which like the Beaverbrook Daily Express now exceeds two millions daily circulation, makes a fourth competitor. It was the aggressor in the war- of* attrition, offering volumes of Dickens at giveaway prices to lure away readers from other journals. BEAVERBROOK CLOTHES MINERS Lord Beaverbrook followed. He started in to clothe the Welsh. Columns of canvassers, as one humorist, put it, “debouched into the valleys of the principality carrying samples of boots and coats and pants.” A whole family could be! clothed at the price of eight weeks ’ reading of the Daily Express. Since then the individual newspapers have been spending at the rate of £50,000 a week and show no sign of abatement of their largesse. Their shareholders' have become restive and their share values have declined. But the respective generals in charge of the campaigns are still far from weakening. Each, of course, blames the others for all the trouble. LIKE GAME OF MUSICAL CHAIRS “To-day it is the era of bribing the newspaper reader with gifts,” saysi Lord Camroso. ‘‘Presents of the most extravagant character are hurled at the poorer clashes of the public in the wild race for circulation. Then there are armios of canvassers. What happens is that no sooner has one, team canvassed a district than it is; followed by a rival. The result isj that’the reader switches from, one: newspaper to another as fast as he! can. It is a kind of game of musicalj chairs. Thousands of readers take a: particular paper for the period of the gift offer and do not read it, and many thousands more take two or three papers just to secure the washing machine, or pair of trouser?, or whatover particular bribe may be. offered at the moment, and do not even look at the paper thus bought.j Our newspapers refrained from join-j ing in the riot until recently, whew we were compelled to do so in self-' defence. But we shall welcome the; termination of the present orgy.” Hon. Esmond Harmsworth, of the Rothermero newspapers, was equally regretful. He explained how they ; “would gladly not fake part, in this deplorable competition,” but, as he insisted, they could not, in tho interest of the shareholders, sacrifice tho future and so’ they had decided to “uso every resource of money and organisation” to defeat their contemporaries in the struggle for “costly canvassing and free gifts.” Lord Beaverbrook, so far, has said’ nothing. But his evening paper now; and then refers to “illusory gains in circulation,” and to “ill-spent, money. ’ ’ The position is, therefore, that the rival newspaper magnates all want peace, but each is too much afraid' of the Test to ask for it.