KM Group's Geraldine Allinson: 'Local media needs to be unburdened'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/jun/16/km-group-newspaper-competition

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Few family-owned local newspaper companies have survived the past 50 years of consolidation. But Geraldine Allinson, chairman of the KM group – and part of a family which has published papers in Kent over four generations – is determined that her business should maintain its independence.

Conscious of the immense challenges facing the industry, she stresses that newspapers are merely one platform for her company, which was named after its main title, the Kent Messenger. "We are a multimedia business," she says. "That is both a reality and a strategy. We see ourselves as a local media group serving different communities of Kent through a combination of platforms."

The "we" is significant. Allinson may be the chairman and her family, through a mixture of individual and trust shareholdings, may be the owners, but during our interview she frequently stresses the important contributions of her management team.

Her collegiate approach aside, there cannot be any doubt that she makes the big decisions and her lengthy apprenticeship in a variety of newspaper roles ensures that she knows the business backwards.

She grew up hearing about newspapers from her father and grandfather. The latter, Henry (always known as Roy) Boorman, whose own father had acquired the Messenger in 1890, lived into his 90s, and continued to take a keen interest in the company even after his son, Edwin, took on the task of running the business in the 1970s. Edwin finally succeeded him as chairman in 1986.

At 18, Allinson, Edwin's eldest daughter, was intent on taking a degree in geology rather than being groomed to be a press baron. But in that year, 1985, the papers were imperilled by a print union strike aimed at preventing the introduction of computer technology. "It was all hands on deck," she recalls. "It was life and death for the business. I did paste-up and I found it all so fascinating. It changed my life."

She decided to do a business studies degree and was sponsored by another of Britain's newspaper families, the Grahams, who run the Express & Star group in the Midlands. From there she joined Northcliffe, working in sales and marketing posts in various towns, such as Carmarthen, Barnstaple and Cheltenham, before her father called her in 1993 and asked her to join the family firm.

She started off as the assistant sales development manager and worked her way up until, in January 2006 – by which time she was married, with two children – her father retired and she took his place.

At the time, the KM group was profitable although performing poorly. Then came the economic crisis precipitated by the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. The company was afflicted by the deepening financial problems that hit all newspaper publishers, and it fell to Allinson to deal with them. "We had to pay off debt, cut costs, cope with the economic downturn and embrace the digital revolution. And we were losing £500,000 a month."

It meant acting more ruthlessly than she would have liked. Unpalatable decisions were taken. Offices were closed. Printing was outsourced, and she is close to tears as she recalls the day she said farewell to a loyal print staff. Loss-making radio outlets were rationalised. Overall, a staff of 700 was reduced to 300.

The painful cost-cutting worked. By 2010, the KM group was able to report that it was back in profit despite the falling revenue. Leaner, Allinson emphasises, does not mean meaner. Hers is still a family enterprise and KM's newspaper titles and radio stations are aimed, she says several times, at "helping local communities to get things done more effectively".

As she explained in a recent speech: "We help them with whatever they are want to do – whether it's raising funds to build a new playground or campaigning for new local services. This is a fundamental, trusted role we play."

It is all the harder to fulfil that role at a time when advertising is difficult to find, print sales are gradually falling away and the digital takeup provides much less revenue. To make matters worse, Allinson believes the competition authorities and, ultimately, the government are failing to understand that the industry requires urgent assistance.

She points to the decision by the Office of Fair Trading in 2011 to refer KM's bid for seven newspapers in its area owned by Northcliffe Media to the Competition Commission. That effectively stymied the deal because the group couldn't afford the referral process with its uncertain outcome.

As a consequence, titles were closed, just as Ofcom, the communications regulator, had warned. Although she has argued that it would seem sensible to see local TV as the next logical step, she adds sceptically: "The numbers would need to stack up." Doubtless, her relationship with Ofcom could prove crucial in making that decision.

"I think the competition authorities really need to follow Ofcom's lead by engaging and listening to the industry," she says, arguing that it is wrong-headed to see her group as trying to monopolise the advertising market in Kent or stifling plurality.

"It is clear to me that we face significant competition," she acknowledges. "New media, including the global giants, are competing with traditional media on the net. We view Google, Monster, Facebook and Gumtree as our major competitors.

"They may not have offices in Kent. They may not have journalists out in Kent talking to people in the community. But they're our competitors, and the competition regime should recognise that. There appears to be an overbearing desire to regulate and control traditional media when it would be more constructive for public policy and the regulatory agenda to focus on how local media can be unburdened and nurtured."

Allinson puts her case with passion, and urges the authorities to consider a sort of shopping list of initiatives to protect and enhance traditional media companies from what she feels is unfair competition.

They include the reining in of council-run publications, a commitment by government and public bodies to use local media for their advertising, and a guarantee that the Press Complaints Commission's successor will not create a further financial burden. She also urges the creation of a copyright regime to prevent newspapers and local online media from being "exploited by content aggregators and search engines".

Allinson, a past president of the regional newspapers' trade body, the Newspaper Society, is also acutely aware of the wider concerns of her industry in relation to the BBC, not least because of the advent of local TV. "I want the BBC to assist commercial local media rather than consistently treating us like a major competitor. I have a special beef here because we often see our stories referred to or followed up by BBC South East without any attribution.

"There was a story on the news bulletin the other day saying a local councillor spoke to 'a local newspaper'. Why can't they mention our title? Yet the BBC constantly promotes brands like Twitter and Facebook by name. It's absolutely ridiculous.

"Then there are the BBC's local websites, which are so well-funded and resourced. They're also our competitors. We need to have far a more symbiotic, mutually beneficial, relationship with the public service broadcaster."

But Allinson is eager to make clear that, despite her complaints and difficulties, they should not conceal the fact that the KM group is prospering. And it is also secure in family hands.

Her cousin Libby, who worked on the commercial side of the business for 10 years, is now a non-executive director. Her brother, Henry, who is 28, has forged a career in marketing and she sees him as part of the coming generation who understand digital technology. She hopes he will put those skills to use at KM in the future.

And she concludes with a gentle boast to underline her point that her business is engaging with the digital era: "I believe our company is fit for the future. I understand we are the first publishing company in Europe to have put most of our systems, including all our production systems, on the Cloud."

Curriculum vitae

Age 46

Education Benenden School; Ealing College (business studies)

Career 1986 Express & Star, Wolverhampton 1991 Northcliffe Media, sales and marketing 1993 KM Group, assistant sales development manager 1996 KM Group, editor and chief executive, Maidstone Star 2000 KM group, various roles 2006 KM Group, chairman 2011-12 president, Newspaper Society