What? Press Ad Rate increase? Seriously Indo and Times?

October 1. It is with incredulity that we post this news…..that the Indo, Sunday Indo, Herald and Irish Times have INCREASED their Ad rates (as shown on this platform). By about +15% despite readership being in a fatal tanking decline (so much so that the Mediahuis CEO suggests they may not even print a paper and move to full digital), despite Covid, despite recessionary warnings, and interestingly, despite their VAT reduction on cover prices recently “achieved”. Remember, these are generally private companies who had their prices reduced (by reducing VAT)….

Interesting too, that as one publisher put up their rates, the other competitor follows (when you might think they’d see it as a competitive price opportunity instead) but of course, no suggestion here of both acting as a cartel. Absolutely not. But what it does mean, is that they’ve added to the cost of Advertising which adds to the cost of business. Worse than that, they think they’ll be successful in charging more for less readers. And that’s never going to happen.