Interview: Bob Phillis, Guardian Media Group (Evening Standard)
By David Rowan
ANN Widdecombe might want to be on standby in Farringdon Road tomorrow. With the March newspaper circulation figures out, Guardian executives may have particular reason to consult their new no-nonsense agony aunt.
What, for instance, should they do about the knotty problem of lost readers, with full-price sales down 10.5 per cent in the year to February - the sharpest fall in Fleet Street? And how, if Alan Rusbridger refuses to go tabloid, will the paper he edits see off the revived compact Independent, up by 20 per cent over the same period and, for the first time in a decade, "within sight" of profit? Such questions have provoked intense debate at The Guardian, as some younger executives, in particular, argue that a failure to reformat the paper marks the greatest crisis of Rusbridger's nine-year reign.
The numbers, certainly, appear ominous: as The Guardian's sales fell to 352,005 last month (369,726 including give-aways), The Independent was up to 222,799 (256,378 in total) from barely 185,000 a year earlier.
The compact Times, meanwhile, had slowed its own annual fall to three per cent, while even the rudderless Telegraph announced plans for an £8 million tabloid launch. If not a crisis, the trend is at least a worry. So if Rusbridger's mind is made up, what does the chief executive think? Bob Phillis, head of the Guardian Media Group (GMG), effectively controls The Guardian as a business. Although not a conventional "proprietor" - GMG, owned by the Scott Trust, is there to preserve its newspapers' financial and editorial independence - Rusbridger needs Phillis's support to get the big cheques signed.
Indeed, Phillis recently spent £593 million to take full control of the Auto Trader empire. So is it true, as some on The Guardian are suggesting, that Phillis is not entirely persuaded by its editor's lack of action? "Not true," he says firmly. "I can assure you that I was not pushing for the tabloid, never have been. Because Alan has very cogently argued that it would put too much at risk in terms of what we are as a newspaper. We're not just going to take a back seat. But we came to the carefully considered conclusion that tabloid wasn't the format which allowed us to continue with those standards."
IT WAS only natural, he says, for "a healthy difference of views" to emerge among the staff. This was, after all, a different kind of newspaper: one whose editor had emailed them all to solicit their views (resulting is a 60:40 split against going tabloid). "There are differences," Phillis says. "But how many newspapers would bother to consult like that?" There are, however, some secret plans afoot to reformat the paper the Guardian way. "Of course we're going to do something," Phillis says.
Rusbridger suggested in a recent interview that he favoured a continental shape such as that used by Le Monde. "What he actually said was there was a range of sizes and formats between broadsheet and tabloids," Phillis clarifies: "Whether you are talking about a New York Times or a La Stampa or a Berliner, or any other shape you like. And there are lots of different design treatments. We're just not going to be driven by the shortterm pressures in the market." He accepts that those pressures are currently damaging The Guardian's reach, but suggests that The Independent will lose some established readers when it goes fully tabloid. He also finds it "interesting" to watch The Times contending with two concurrent formats, which he considers not entirely successful.
"You can see differences in the ways the two papers are edited that haven't quite resolved themselves," he says.
Phillis, 58, has made a career of avoiding causing offence while steering large media organisations. A Guardian man since 1997, he was previously a Birtist while deputy director-general at the BBC, and before that a commercial boss unafraid to wield the axe at ITN and the commercial television channels.
He left school at 15, with ambitions to be an architect, but having no A-levels became a printing apprentice before running the company that published TV Times.
Since then, his unadventurous diplomacy has led him to some roles unsuited to more outspoken figures - most recently chairing the review into government communications, hailed as the blueprint to end Whitehall spin.
If he is disappointed with the Government's hedging of many of his proposals, he is careful to hone this in his presentation. He was glad, he says, to see a new Civil Service post responsible for communications-But wasn't Howell James, who was given the role, a professional spin-doctor who worked for John Major and was friendly with Peter Mandelson? Even the Guardian leader on the appointment was headed: "A faint whiff of cronyism".
Phillis the diplomat replies that he is "delighted" with James's appointment. "Yes, he was there in Major's time, but he's done a lot of other things. Frankly, some of the attacks on his personal and private life were despicable: the unwarranted linkage to Peter Mandelson, who some of the media stated was with Howell at his 50th birthday party in Morocco. Quite unsubstantiated." Such falsehoods would not have been acceptable in a "responsible" newspaper such as The Guardian.
WHAT of the group's financial health? The Guardian may be in profit, but its websites are still losing between £1 million and £5 million a year, and The Observer, Phillis accepts, loses "a bob or two" - reportedly up to £10 million a year. But, bar The Sunday Times, all Sunday broadsheets lose money, he stresses.
Does he believe the group's cumulative losses - perhaps £100 million - had made The Observer purchase in 1993 a mistake? "It was before my time," he says, "but there has been a cultural change since then. Saturday and Sunday [papers] have become so similar in terms of the leisuretime read. The focus, I think, is looking at the Saturday and Sunday packages. There is such a weight of newsprint - and a degree of overlap. A lot of the lifestyle-type sections are very similar across both days, and across various publications. We'll be trying to address that problem." This suggests changes that will "redefine the offerings" on both days. But to ensure no one takes any offence, he adds that Roger Alton has done a fine job editing The Observer, and that no question mark hangs over its future.
In an attempt finally to break through the cheerful evasion of controversy, I mischievously draw Phillis's attention to an Observer leader last month headlined: "Time to neuter the fat cats", and a Polly Toynbee column in The Guardian denouncing "fat cat pay [as] the result of greed". How, I ask, do both papers' strident views on such an issue square with his own pay package of £686,000, including pension contributions, and that of Alan Rusbridger totalling £359,000? Phillis's answer, true to the Guardian's ethos, is that he is delighted to face such open scrutiny. "There are," he points out, "no share options or long-term incentive schemes here. If I look around me to people performing similar roles in similar organisations, I don't think I'm out of kilter. As for Alan, I think he is underpaid." Over to you, Ms Toynbee.
(Evening Standard, April 7 2004)
ANN Widdecombe might want to be on standby in Farringdon Road tomorrow. With the March newspaper circulation figures out, Guardian executives may have particular reason to consult their new no-nonsense agony aunt.
What, for instance, should they do about the knotty problem of lost readers, with full-price sales down 10.5 per cent in the year to February - the sharpest fall in Fleet Street? And how, if Alan Rusbridger refuses to go tabloid, will the paper he edits see off the revived compact Independent, up by 20 per cent over the same period and, for the first time in a decade, "within sight" of profit? Such questions have provoked intense debate at The Guardian, as some younger executives, in particular, argue that a failure to reformat the paper marks the greatest crisis of Rusbridger's nine-year reign.
The numbers, certainly, appear ominous: as The Guardian's sales fell to 352,005 last month (369,726 including give-aways), The Independent was up to 222,799 (256,378 in total) from barely 185,000 a year earlier.
The compact Times, meanwhile, had slowed its own annual fall to three per cent, while even the rudderless Telegraph announced plans for an £8 million tabloid launch. If not a crisis, the trend is at least a worry. So if Rusbridger's mind is made up, what does the chief executive think? Bob Phillis, head of the Guardian Media Group (GMG), effectively controls The Guardian as a business. Although not a conventional "proprietor" - GMG, owned by the Scott Trust, is there to preserve its newspapers' financial and editorial independence - Rusbridger needs Phillis's support to get the big cheques signed.
Indeed, Phillis recently spent £593 million to take full control of the Auto Trader empire. So is it true, as some on The Guardian are suggesting, that Phillis is not entirely persuaded by its editor's lack of action? "Not true," he says firmly. "I can assure you that I was not pushing for the tabloid, never have been. Because Alan has very cogently argued that it would put too much at risk in terms of what we are as a newspaper. We're not just going to take a back seat. But we came to the carefully considered conclusion that tabloid wasn't the format which allowed us to continue with those standards."
IT WAS only natural, he says, for "a healthy difference of views" to emerge among the staff. This was, after all, a different kind of newspaper: one whose editor had emailed them all to solicit their views (resulting is a 60:40 split against going tabloid). "There are differences," Phillis says. "But how many newspapers would bother to consult like that?" There are, however, some secret plans afoot to reformat the paper the Guardian way. "Of course we're going to do something," Phillis says.
Rusbridger suggested in a recent interview that he favoured a continental shape such as that used by Le Monde. "What he actually said was there was a range of sizes and formats between broadsheet and tabloids," Phillis clarifies: "Whether you are talking about a New York Times or a La Stampa or a Berliner, or any other shape you like. And there are lots of different design treatments. We're just not going to be driven by the shortterm pressures in the market." He accepts that those pressures are currently damaging The Guardian's reach, but suggests that The Independent will lose some established readers when it goes fully tabloid. He also finds it "interesting" to watch The Times contending with two concurrent formats, which he considers not entirely successful.
"You can see differences in the ways the two papers are edited that haven't quite resolved themselves," he says.
Phillis, 58, has made a career of avoiding causing offence while steering large media organisations. A Guardian man since 1997, he was previously a Birtist while deputy director-general at the BBC, and before that a commercial boss unafraid to wield the axe at ITN and the commercial television channels.
He left school at 15, with ambitions to be an architect, but having no A-levels became a printing apprentice before running the company that published TV Times.
Since then, his unadventurous diplomacy has led him to some roles unsuited to more outspoken figures - most recently chairing the review into government communications, hailed as the blueprint to end Whitehall spin.
If he is disappointed with the Government's hedging of many of his proposals, he is careful to hone this in his presentation. He was glad, he says, to see a new Civil Service post responsible for communications-But wasn't Howell James, who was given the role, a professional spin-doctor who worked for John Major and was friendly with Peter Mandelson? Even the Guardian leader on the appointment was headed: "A faint whiff of cronyism".
Phillis the diplomat replies that he is "delighted" with James's appointment. "Yes, he was there in Major's time, but he's done a lot of other things. Frankly, some of the attacks on his personal and private life were despicable: the unwarranted linkage to Peter Mandelson, who some of the media stated was with Howell at his 50th birthday party in Morocco. Quite unsubstantiated." Such falsehoods would not have been acceptable in a "responsible" newspaper such as The Guardian.
WHAT of the group's financial health? The Guardian may be in profit, but its websites are still losing between £1 million and £5 million a year, and The Observer, Phillis accepts, loses "a bob or two" - reportedly up to £10 million a year. But, bar The Sunday Times, all Sunday broadsheets lose money, he stresses.
Does he believe the group's cumulative losses - perhaps £100 million - had made The Observer purchase in 1993 a mistake? "It was before my time," he says, "but there has been a cultural change since then. Saturday and Sunday [papers] have become so similar in terms of the leisuretime read. The focus, I think, is looking at the Saturday and Sunday packages. There is such a weight of newsprint - and a degree of overlap. A lot of the lifestyle-type sections are very similar across both days, and across various publications. We'll be trying to address that problem." This suggests changes that will "redefine the offerings" on both days. But to ensure no one takes any offence, he adds that Roger Alton has done a fine job editing The Observer, and that no question mark hangs over its future.
In an attempt finally to break through the cheerful evasion of controversy, I mischievously draw Phillis's attention to an Observer leader last month headlined: "Time to neuter the fat cats", and a Polly Toynbee column in The Guardian denouncing "fat cat pay [as] the result of greed". How, I ask, do both papers' strident views on such an issue square with his own pay package of £686,000, including pension contributions, and that of Alan Rusbridger totalling £359,000? Phillis's answer, true to the Guardian's ethos, is that he is delighted to face such open scrutiny. "There are," he points out, "no share options or long-term incentive schemes here. If I look around me to people performing similar roles in similar organisations, I don't think I'm out of kilter. As for Alan, I think he is underpaid." Over to you, Ms Toynbee.
(Evening Standard, April 7 2004)
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