The Future of Print Belongs to Entrepreneurial Publishers

If you were looking to invest in a business, would you consider taking on a failing newspaper? With the state of the current publishing industry, you might think it wise to decline such an opportunity.

However, one businessman believes there is still very much a future in newspaper publishing and is eagerly on the hunt for new acquisitions.

Peter Masters saved Cornwall’s 200-year-old Sunday Independent title after it published its ‘final’ edition in April.

With a little debt-restructuring and a 20p increase in price, Masters reckons the paper is now ‘basically running at a profit’.

What’s more, since the businessman took over the title, its circulation has risen by four percent.

Speaking to Press Gazette, Masters said: ‘It isn’t going to stop here’.

Masters believes the future is very much in newsprint stating: ‘If we are selling piles of papers we can turn a loss-making paper into profit. It’s all about getting those sales up.’

He added: ‘Investment in newsprint is what is going to bring in the readers.’

Suggesting the problem with the newspaper industry has more to do with the publishers’ businesses than the titles themselves, Masters said: ‘You can’t keep cutting things. The [business] model has been to cut staff, but it just doesn’t work. We have got to find out why papers aren’t selling and react to it and go for it.’

Highlighting the need for agility and a fresh perspective in the publishing industry, Masters said: ‘We are nimble and we are coming in fresh. We have got the titles, we have got rid of their massive overheads and we can be quick thinking and moving on our feet, which is great. We have brought in a machine that has operated from 2017 onwards, not 1977.’