Gone to Press


	News
	Every week we include some topical news items on this page. If you want to contribute an item of news, please let us know. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Government Recognition for the Creative Industries In a recent statement the Government recognised the creative industries' contribution to the economy. This amounted to over £56bn in 2004, accounting for over seven per cent of GDP and supporting 1.8m jobs. The Government says they will work with the industry to provide the economic conditons to thrive. More significant however is the fact that Government is taking on board the the importance of a clear intellectual property regime, to foster innovation and choice. This recognises the complex nature of intellectual property law and the need to balance the interests of rightsholders and users; all highly encouraging in light of anti-copyright lobbying and European discussions on the intellectual property regime. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Confidence in Self Employment The latest Index from specialist lender, Kensington, shows that 67% of self-employed people are confident about their business prospects for the next six months, up from 64% last quarter, with more than half of business owners aged between 35 and 44 expecting their turnover to increase in the next year. But the rising rate environment is having an effect on how the self-employed run their business, with more people looking to control their overheads and expecting to have to increase their marketing spend in order to maintain turnover. When it comes to investing extra financial resources into their businesses, nearly half of business owners plan to dig into their own resources, with 46% using personal savings, up from 40% last quarter. Ahhhh it's nice to know that we are not alone! It seems female business owners are slightly more bullish than their male counterparts, with 46% expecting their firm's business prospects to increase over the next six months compared to 43% of men. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Regional Press The Newspaper Society has set up the Portfolio Audience Group, a small group of regional press research, circulation and readership experts who, under the chairmanship of Mark Rix of the Manchester Evening News, have been tasked by the Society’s Marketing Committee to achieve a system of audience measurement and reporting which reflects the wider portfolio of print and online, paid-for and free platforms which now makes up the regional press. Matthew Merrett, associate director of Regional Media at Manning Gottlieb OMD, said: “Everyone now agrees that if you want to target a certain locality you don't just use the local paper anymore, you consider the local magazines, website etc. As regional media experts we can recognise a good local product when we see one but it can be difficult to convince clients without any hard data to back it up. The news that the NS is working on a multi-layered geographical audience coverage system comes at a perfect time for the regional industry. To be able to prove the combined effect of using the different local media together is exactly what we need and can only be a good thing as far as local advertisers are concerned.” The regional press is the largest print advertising medium and a £3 billion advertising medium, second only to TV. The core newspapers alone are read by over 40 million adults, and people trust what they read. Research has shown that people consider the regional press to be the most relevant media to their own lives, and 71% of people act on the advertising, (the wanted ads). Recent research by GFK NOP demonstrated that ad avoidance isn’t an issue in the regional press, as people actively look for advertising in the medium and see it as a valuable part of the product offering. They turn to the regional press for information they can trust when they are in the market to buy, and feel that brand advertising has an important place in regional media. All good news for us!