Having spent 15 years buying advertising for national and local companies I think I can add to this trail a little.I will start with a little smack for everyone on this forum, as the demise of classified advertising, and some display advertising, is down to budgets being shifted online. Add to that, eyeballs are shifting online into local arenas like Ealingtoday.co.uk and we are ourselves adding to the decay of local "offline" media.Had we been having this debate on a newspaper forum instead of here, at least that publisher would be able to sell our eyeballs and invest that revenue in keeping the paper going. There are only so many media people will consume properly, and if you think hard you might agree that your use and loyalty to ealingtoday.co.uk has reduced the value of the local paper for finding news and opinion.Which brings me onto my next point.You are all here for a reason. That reason is ealingtoday provides you with something you want. Be it the forum, news, classifieds, even discussing things with friends. All media need to have a USP, a reason to build a loyal following or usage. Local papers missed the trick big-time in the advent of the web. If they had realised what we really wanted, this site would be owned by them.Instead they created imitations, possibly too late to grab the same audience they had offline. Add to that demographic change, with more people happy to use the web, and papers struggle.But vitally, the reason I would place an advert for my clients in a local paper is content. Good content builds readership, builds loyalty and builds an environment to advertise in. And content suffers when revenues don't allow for good journalism. Catch-22. Advertising leaves due to the web changing consumer behaviour, investment falls and the medium dies. Very few towns in the US now have a local paper. We may end up in the same situation.There is a parallel I'll throw in.On the high street, consumers have a herd mentality based on their demographic. That is proven statistically. You can maintain purchase behaviour as long as demographics are stable. That in turn generates revenues which sustain similarly demographic retailers. The demographics of Ealing high street users has changed dramatically in the 12yrs I've been here, from ABC1 english speakers to C2DE immigrants. You only have to pop into Currys on a Sunday to find most shoppers don't speak English as a first language, for example, and many shops have polish speakers to cope with the customers. Before anyone begins the knee-jerk PC racist chants, my point is this new demographic could not sustain the Ealing of 12yrs ago, in terms of retailer demographic and required revenues through tills. Again, in my industry I get stats easily about retail volumes by postcode by demographic (Retail MOSAIC plus EPOS data for those who care), and it is clear Chiswick and Kingston have seen their footfall volumes explode with ABC1 Ealing residents voting with their feet to environments they are comfortable with (a demographic match). Catch-22. Environment changes, consumer behaviour changes, environment has to change further due to economic pressures. So I would suggest all Ealing residents looking to maintain Ealing of 12yrs ago should vote with their feet and wallets and try and spend money in those retail outlets still useful to them rather than heading south.The one question is whether external factors beyond immigration catalysed the decline. Greedy retail landlords? The proposed leaf development scaring retailers into giving up space? Westfield? the council not investing enough in the local environment?Unfortunately I think you can't beat a bit of John Lewis followed by a browse round the market square, a stroll by the river and lunch at Frere Jaques, so I will admit Kingston is getting my money. Will Ealing ever get mine back? Not while it looks the state it does.
Darren Barber ● 6388d