If we are to mourn the passing of the Independent, let’s pay tribute to those who founded it and those who sustained it through many years of unprofitability.
The newspaper was born 30 years ago as a dream by idealist journalists who enjoyed virtually instantaneous success until they awoke to business reality.
After a period of uncomfortable joint ownerships, the Independent then benefited from the charity of two successive owners, Ireland’s Tony O’Reilly, and Russia’s Lebedevs, Alexander and son Evgeny, who sacrificed millions in order to keep the dream alive.
In order to survive, the Independent was responsible for surprising innovations that affected the entire newspaper publishing industry, and not just in Britain.
It was the first to switch format from broadsheet to compact, an initiative that led to similar changes elsewhere. It pioneered distinctive poster-style front pages. It promoted itself as a “viewspaper”. Finally, it spawned a spin-off publication, the i, which secured a new, younger audience.
None of these enterprising experiments made a real difference however because the Independent was unable to retain readers during a cataclysmic period of media history.
In national newspaper terms, it looks set to be the first casualty of the digital revolution. Once its print sales started to decline they just went on falling to a level that made the paper’s daily appearance a triumph of hope over economic reality.
It had not always been like that. After its launch in October 1986, in the wake of Rupert Murdoch’s union-busting move to Wapping, the paper rapidly built an audience.
Although its founders – Andreas Whittam Smith, Stephen Glover and Matthew Symonds – were disaffected Daily Telegraph staffers, their paper was soon viewed as having a liberal editorial stance, partly by virtue of its title, partly by the choice of senior executives and partly due to a clever promotional slogan: “The Independent: It is, are you?”
By describing itself as “free from party political bias” and “free from proprietorial influence”, the Indy – as it became known – quickly attracted readers. Thousands deserted the Times and the Guardian, while a few arrived from the Telegraph along with young people yet to adopt a daily paper habit.
Within three years, the Independent managed to achieve a regular daily sale of more than 400,000. It was the newspaper phenomenon of the age.
But success went to the founders’ heads. They were determined to publish a Sunday equivalent, and by unhappy chance the Independent on Sunday’s 1990 launch occurred at the beginning of a dramatic recession.
The prior launch of a short-lived rival, the Sunday Correspondent, also muddied the waters a little and the “Sindy” struggled to gain a foothold.
The company created by the founders, Newspaper Publishing, ran into liquidity problems and sought help, originally forming partnerships with European press owners. Then it was hit by Rupert Murdoch’s price war. He cut the cover price of the Times and the Independent found itself unable to compete.
In 1994, two media companies – Mirror Group led by chief executive David Montgomery, and Ireland’s Independent News & Media (INM) – chaired by Tony O’Reilly, attempted to acquire the Independent and after a share-buying contest had to agree on a joint ownership.
It proved to be anything but ideal. Editors came and went while the rival proprietors argued over how to run the company. After a lengthy period of unhappiness, O’Reilly’s company spent £30m to obtain full ownership in March 1998.
With circulation having halved since its high point, Andrew Marr was appointed as the Indy’s editor – but he didn’t last long. His chair was taken by Simon Kelner and he was to spend 13 years as editor, enjoying occasional moments of sales peaks despite an inexorable, gradual overall decline.
O’Reilly accepted that the paper would never be profitable, regarding it as his calling card across the world where his Irish-based company was expanding by acquiring papers in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
But O’Reilly was not prepared to spend unlimited sums on the Independent and cost-cutting was regularly imposed. In September 2003, he oversaw the launch of a compact Indy to run alongside the broadsheet.
Its smaller format attracted a new audience and sales rose by more than 15%, to about 250,000. In May 2004, the broadsheet version was dropped altogether. By that time, the Times had also given up publishing in broadsheet size and the Guardian had adopted its Berliner format.
Around the world, various newspapers also adopted the compact form. The Independent had started a small revolution.
For O’Reilly, however, the gloss had come off Independent ownership. His company was beset with troubles in Ireland and he found himself under pressure from a director, Denis O’Brien, to reduce his loss-making assets.
In a last throw of the dice, O’Reilly made a deal in 2008 with the Daily Mail’s publishers, Associated Newspapers, to move into its Kensington headquarters and share services and overheads.
It was far too little too late, and with sales slumping once more, he agreed to sell the titles in March 2010 to Alexander Lebedev for a nominal £1 fee plus several millions to cover outstanding contractual costs. Lebedev had already acquired a controlling stake in the London Evening Standard.
Alexander, a former member of the KGB and widely regarded as an oligarch, passed over responsibility for the papers to his son, Evgeny.
Under his stewardship, the Indy’s colourful compact sister, i, was launched in October 2010. Initially priced at 20p, it soon secured an audience far larger than that of the Independent, which saw its sales fall away until they reached barely 60,000 despite the vigorous editing of Amol Rajan.
At that level, the paper could not hope to turn a profit. The on-cost was punishing and Lebedev, having lost so much money, had no alternative but to say enough is enough. After 30 years, the dream appears all but over.
