The Daily Telegraph: drinking in the Last Chance saloon?

For quite some time, I have felt that the Daily Telegraph was due for a change of ownership. Now it looks as if the 11-year reign of terror by the Barmy Barclay Brothers might have run its course. The twins are now 80, they no longer seem to take much interest in the paper.

 

Private Eye has been running a hatchet job for over a year about the conflicts of interest between editorial and advertising and the shambolic staff situation. The rate of attrition from the editorial side has been awesome; it is surprising that there are any actual writers left.

 

The first notable departure was Simon Heffer, widely believed to be due to his hostility to Cameron. Since then there has been a rout culminating in the pyrotechnic departure of Peter Oborn; he accused the Chief Executive, Murdoch MacLennan of committing a fraud on readers by suppressing news in deference to advertisers, specifically the HSBC scandal. He joins Heffer at the Daily Mail.

 

The average tenure of the Editor has been less than 2 years. But whole flocks of chickens are now coming home to roost. The American boss brought in to digitalise the paper has been fired – hardly surprising, unlike his appointment; he had no experience whatsoever in the print media. It is probably digitalisation that makes the on-line DT a shambles,  with ‘comment’ items remaining on the page for days and news updates failing to appear. MacLennan could well be the ultimate victim of his own regime.

 

During the Barclay’s ownership,  pre-tax profits have fallen by about $10 million, sales have almost halved, and the on-line operation is very lacklustre. The Barclay twins paid £625 million for the paper in 2004. That works out at around £1 billion in today’s money.

 

So who will buy it?

 

Well, the record seems to show that national newspapers are a vanity venture for billionaires; profitability is a secondary consideration. It is entirely possible that there is a fabulously rich Asia, Russian or Chinese somewhere out there who fancies being owner of the House Journal of the Tory Party (which actually it is no longer).

 

One name being bandied about is Lakshmi Mittal the steel magnate. He had better be quick; the decline in the quality of the DT has been so marked and so rapid that survival must be the top priority.