According to a report on Media Grauniad, Tribune is to announce its closure. Again.
It was pulled from the brink two years ago when it was bought by Kevin McGrath. At that time it was reported as selling fewer than 4,000 copies a week and since the purchase, according to the Graun, “the magazine has missed circulation and revenue targets”. You don’t say.
Private Frazer is still waiting for the axe to fall on New Statesman, but it seems Mike Danson has deeper pockets than Mr McGrath.
When Private Frazer was a wee bairn, a poond note would buy you a night at the pictures, a fish supper and change for the bus ride home. Those days seem to be returning as for just a quid you can pick up either Woolworths or Tribune magazine.
One, of course, retains a lot of affection, but its glory days are long behind it. A brand without a point or a purpose, it has struggled on for years losing money and customers and without any clear sense of direction. The other is Woolworths (boom boom).
If Private Frazer had a spare quid (which I don’t, so there’s nae point you asking), he’d hang on to it; the way the RBI sale price is dropping he might be able to pick up the whole of Quadrant house in a week or two.
In what appears to be a wee bit of briefing to preempt a meeting this evening, that well-known defender of left-wing causes the London Evening Standard carries a diary article saying that Tribune is about to close
The piece describes Tribune as a ‘successful small business’. It would be interesting to know what definition of ‘success’ is being used here – it’s obviously not one that includes circulation or profitability.
19/09/08 update. A wee letter in the Guardian from all types of old lefties saying that Tribune needs to continue. It ends with the rousing statement “Now is precisely the time when we need independent, forthright voices such as that of Tribune. And now is not the time to lose it.“
All well and good, but there’s absolutely no justification as to why it needs to continue (selling just 4,000 copies) as a weekly paper. If it had an ounce of sense it would stop cutting down trees and gain a bigger audience and more influence online. In that way it would arguably to much more to provide a home for generations of independent thinkers, writers and dissenters” .
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