THOUGH no longer located there, Britain’s national newspaper industry is still colloquially known as 'Fleet Street.', which still enjoys a certain romantic notoriety as the 'Street of Shame' or the 'Street of Ink.'

Reasons for such a congregation of journalists, printers and advertising people - a community close-knit, yet riven with rivalries - probably goes back to 1500 AD, when Wynkyn de Worde, an apprentice of pioneer printer William Caxton (1422-1491), set up shop in the area. 

Nearby were monastic foundations of Knights Templar and Carmelites, who must have encouraged literacy, as did the establishment of the Inns of Court.  And so the locality saw growth of flourishing printing and bookselling businesses.

Printer’s skills came to be applied in new ways with the establishment of the Morning Post in 1772, The Times in 1785 and The Observer in 1791.  Steam-driven presses began to speed up the production process.  However, the crucial turning point was the repeal of Stamp Duty on newspapers in 1855.

At the time, general literacy was increasing , urban populations were growing, and the growth of the railway network radiating out of London was tripling the distribution area accessible within a day’s travel. 

With the introduction of telegraphy accelerating the news gathering process, the location of the Press Association news agency’s office in Fleet Street became an important consideration.

All these factors triggered a colossal expansion.  Successful proprietors - the tough-minded ruthless ones - amassed fortunes and came to wield incredible influence over opinions and events. 

As politicians, businessmen and even royalty sought their company and favour, their egos grew.  They were often ennobled - 'for their services' - and ran their newspapers like feudal fiefdoms.

The newspaper nobility still exists, but very few now remain in command - for example: Viscount Rothermere whose Daily Mail was established by his forebears.  Along the way, for instance, the Aitken family ceded control of the Daily Express (founded by the Scottish Canadian, Max Aitken, later Lord Beaverbrook), and the Astors gave up on The Times and The Observer.

Rescue

The difficulty was that, while ownership of a great newspaper gave access to incredible cash-flows and influence, it was a highly perishable commodity - worse than fish on a hot day.  And the printing trade unions knew this. 

As a result, over the years, they commanded ever higher pay.  A stifling structure of inefficient methods and 'old Spanish practices' grew into place, all conceded by proprietors desperate to get their newspapers back on the streets and keep the advertising revenues flowing.

Then commercial television arrived to steal away a major slice of the advertising cake.  By the mid-1960s, analysts were making it clear that the newspapers’ situations were simply unsustainable. 

If they continued that way for a couple more years, the whole industry would go down.  And managements spent hours closeted in smoke-filled rooms, desperate to convince deaf trade union officials.

Amazingly the industry did not collapse, but continued to blunder along until rescue came in the form of a traumatic technological revolution in the mid-1980s. 

The stalking horse was one Eddie Shah, a successful provincial entrepreneur who saw the potential in computers and new printing techniques.  He reasoned that, using the latest methods and free of union constraints, he could start a new challenger and make a profit.

The unions would have none of attempts by established proprietors to introduce new techniques, and so much expensive equipment lay gathering dust.  Yet journalists working for Shah’s Today reported with amazement how they were allowed to change their own light bulbs and plug in computers. 

THE PLAYERS

Thus encouraged, the established newspapers began to force through reform one by one:

• Biggest and boldest of the movers was Rupert Murdoch, scion of an Australian newspaper family who had arrived in Britain in the late 1960s.  He bought the ailing Sun from the Mirror Group and stunned everyone by transforming it into a brash direct rival for the Daily Mirror, the world’s biggest selling paper at the time, and rapidly overtook it.

  • Murdoch’s News International plc now owns The Times and the Sunday Times, both broadsheet, plus the News of the World (Sunday) Today and the Sun, all tabloids.  Between them, the four titles hold 37 per cent of the market.  Most of this empire now operates from a purpose-built newspaper factory near the Tower of London.

  • The move to 'Fortress Wapping' was characterised by clashes between police and ousted print union members trying often violently to disrupt the business.  Murdoch interests also embrace Harper Collins book publishing and 50 per cent of BSkyB.

• The Berry family lost control of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph to Canadian magnate Conrad Black.  These titles’ leap into new technology took them to London’s Docklands, now re-developed as a city in itself to the east of the City of London.  The Telegraph plc’s broadsheets enjoy 5.4 per cent of the market.

• The Daily Express and Sunday Express, once broadsheets but now tabloids, were taken off Aitken hands by the Trafalgar House property group, owner of Cunard shipping and the QEII ocean liner.  Later, they were sold on to United Newspapers plc, a publisher of regional titles and magazines wanting to hit the big time.

  • The offices were moved from an imposing art-deco listed building in Fleet Street to a modern imitation just across the river.  The Express titles have a 12.2 per cent market share.

• City editor Andreas Whittam-Smith saw opportunities in the new technology and established The Independent, a modern broadsheet, and the Sunday Independent under the umbrella of Newspaper Publishing plc.  They won an enthusiastic following among the yuppies of the 1980s, but have since fallen on leaner times.  Now owned by a consortium led by Mirror Group plc, they are credited with two per cent of the market.

• The widely-respected Financial Times abandoned its handsome brick HQ in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral and moved south across Southwark Bridge.  The 'FT' , with one per cent of the UK market, continues with an ambitious programme to establish satellite printing around the world.  Currently it also prints as far afield as Leeds, Stockholm, Madrid, Frankfurt, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Hong Kong and Tokyo, to name but a few, and distribution covers 160 countries.

  •  The FT, printed on pink paper and promoted by a similarly-styled hot air balloon, is owned by Pearson plc, a large diverse company.  Its interests include Westminster Press, publisher of many local and regional newspapers, Longman book publishing, Thames Television, Yorkshire-Tyne Tees TV, BSkyB and collaboration with BBC World Service TV.

• The Guardian, a wordy broadsheet daily with a long liberal tradition, remains at its building 10 minutes from Fleet Street.  It recently added a Sunday title to its portfolio, the ailing Observer.  Another liberal newspaper, it seems to have lost its way in its battle to compete with much more successful Conservative Sunday broadsheets.  Guardian Media Group plc has three per cent of the national market.  It also publishes regional and local newspapers and some magazines, and owns 15 per cent of GMTV.

• While other publishers had moved either south or east into re-development areas, Lord Rothermere took his Daily Mail & General Trust plc westwards to the much smarter reaches of Kensington High Street, abundant with elegant watering holes and up-market shops.  The location suits the style of Lord Rothermere’s right-hand man Sir David English, who has built up the group’s three titles.  Traditionally supporters of the Conservatives, though now apparently impressed with 'New Labour', they have done well by appealing to the aspirations of a middle class that has grown dramatically in the past 20-30 years.

  •  The Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday hold 12.5 per cent of the market and, after successfully crushing rivals, the Evening Standard enjoys a monopoly as the London newspaper, with editions hitting the streets from dawn to dusk.  The Trust also publishes many regional newspapers, and has significant holdings in Teletext, Reuters, ITN and local radio.  Latest venture has been the launch of a London cable TV station.

• Last to move - from its purpose-built HQ that became a landmark in the mid-1960s when it was the biggest seller - was Mirror Group plc.  It had undergone a torrid period of ownership by Robert Maxwell who had snapped up the company for a song, right from under the nose of the then management, headed by a former building society chief who thought he understood media.

  • Maxwell, widely nicknamed the 'Bouncing Czech' or 'Cap’n Bob' was immense in frame, appetites and ego.  A former Labour MP, he had built up a technical and educational publishing house, and enjoyed links with the Eastern Bloc.  He was wont to publish such engaging material as the collected speeches of President Ceausescu of Romania.  In furthering his ambitions to match - or beat - Rupert Murdoch on a global scale, he plundered the Mirror’s coffers, including its pension fund.

  • When he died mysteriously in 1993 - he fell into the sea from his yacht - all these skeletons fell out of the cupboard.  Just as booming stock markets had served to rocket him upwards, so their decline brought him down, and he could not stop the slide.  Two of his sons and an associate are currently facing trial for fraud.

  • Now headed by stern Ulsterman David Montgomery, the group moved to Docklands last year.  The Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, The People and Daily Record (Scotland) have 25.9 per cent of the market, and traditionally support Labour, though their allegiances are less clear now.  Montgomery led the consortium that rescued Newspaper Publishing plc, and recently started the Live TV cable channel.

Logic

All these moves were guided by a common logic.  Traditionally a newspaper HQ had had to be a combination of prestige office and factory, with management suites and boardroom at the top, chaotic newsroom in the middle, lead-fuming typesetting machines below, huge rumbling presses in the basement and despatch areas at the side.

The computer age dispensed with all that. Now the journalist writes his copy on screen - direct input - or sends it direct into the mainframe via modem from his laptop.  The sub-editor does any re-writing on screen, then passes the copy, headlines and picture captions electronically to the layout man who does his job on screen.   Pictures too are 'wired' direct into the computer system without any need for old-style prints, except maybe as reference.

The resulting 'pages' are then transmitted via fibre-optic cable to the printing plant where they are electro-chemically transformed into 'plates' which are attached to the press.  So it does not matter whether newsroom and printing plant are a mile or hundreds or thousands of miles apart. 

One advantage, in a national context, is that 'satellite' printing plants can be placed strategically around the country, cutting distribution times and slashing transportation costs.  The FT, with its internationally-saleable product, has simply been extending this logic world-wide.

1987 words Copyright © by Anthony Howard