Author: Sebastian Cuttill

GPMA members represent over 7,500 companies with an annual turnover of £14 billion that employ approximately 130,000 people.

By joining forces with organisations representing the interests of printing businesses, the PPA hopes to forge deeper links with the company’s supplying our members, as well helping to formulate effective policy campaigns that will support our publishers’ print titles.

This ability was demonstrated by a GPMA statement, made last week, calling on the new Prime Minister and Business Secretary to move rapidly to cap industrial energy costs. The statement warned Government: ‘Without immediate action, viable businesses are at risk of being overwhelmed by unsustainable price rises and a breakdown of supply chain integrity. Saving businesses from the most vicious economic conditions in a generation must be a top priority in cabinet and Whitehall’.

Supporting businesses in the print supply chain (including several PPA Associate Members) will be critical in mitigating the impact of the energy crisis on publishers. Therefore, we welcome the news that a new six-month Government scheme will provide support for all businesses. After this initial scheme, the Government will provide ongoing focused support for vulnerable industries, and the PPA will work with the GPMA to emphasise the need for prolonged support for the print supply chain.

One of the key ways we can demonstrate the need for Government support is providing evidence on the impact of soaring energy costs. If you’re a PPA Member or Associate Member, and would like to talk about the impact of energy costs on your business, please email Sebastian Cuttill our Senior Public Affairs Executive.

Michelle Donelan worked in marketing for Marie Claire and subsequently took up similar roles for the History Channel and World Wrestling Entertainment before becoming an MP in 2015.

In an article for Press Gazette, the PPA called on the Secretary of State to ‘match the agility, innovation and ambition of specialist media publishers with world-leading policymaking’, observing that the DCMS brief is now ‘central to government policy’.

Policy issues that the Department must prioritise include putting the Digital Markets Unit on a statutory footing, rebalancing the relationship between tech giants and specialist media businesses. It will also be necessary to coordinate across Whitehall on issues such as skills, and creating a tax regime which supports publishers to innovate at pace.

The PPA’s article concluded: ‘DCMS has grown into a department with the power and responsibility to transform the UK economy, and have far-reaching impacts across the digital space. This gives Michelle Donelan a huge opportunity to bolster the sector where she began her professional life, supporting UK specialist media businesses to retain their unparalleled global status’.

The claim will attempt to recover revenue lost from anti-competitive behaviour in the ad market over several years.

Humphries Kerstetter, a law firm, will bring a €7bn UK case to the competition appeal tribunal in October. In May, the Competition and Markets Authority launched an investigation into Google’s practices in ad tech, following launch of probe into Google and Meta’s ‘Jedi Blue’ agreement.

An EU suit is being brought in the Netherlands; both cases are being financed by litigation funding funds, which will take a portion of any proceeds. The UK case will be opt-out, which means that publishers will automatically be claimants.

A partner at Humphries Kerstetter, Toby Starr, emphasised that the case will not just look to benefit core news and current affairs websites.

He said: "This important claim will represent a class of victims of Google’s anti-competitive conduct in ad tech who have collectively lost an estimated £7bn. This includes news websites up and down the country with large daily readerships as well as the thousands of small business owners who depend on advertising revenue – be it from their fishing website, food blog, football fanzine or other online content they have spent time creating and publishing."

Google has stated it will fight the case vigorously.

Neil Gray MSP is the Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development at Holyrood, and this meeting follows a conversation between the PPA and Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Culture Angus Robertson MSP last year. Gray undertook a degree in politics and journalism, and was a producer and reporter with BBC Radio Orkney from 2003 until 2008. The SNP politician represented the Airdrie and Shotts constituency in Westminster until 2021, before being elected to the Scottish parliament in that same year.

The PPA emphasised the key role that the specialist publishing sector plays in informing and entertaining the Scottish people with highly trusted content, created by journalists that are experts in their specialist fields. As the digitalisation of media allows citizens to seek out ever more focused sources of information online, the trusted content produced by PPA Scotland members has never been more important.

The PPA also voiced concerns that specialist publishing, sitting as it does at the confluence of the creative industries and press and media sectors, can sometimes be overlooked in the policy-making process. This makes the need for focused sector support all the more urgent, particularly as rising print and paper costs and pressing skills shortages continue to present serious challenges for publishers.

Going forwards, PPA Scotland is committed to engaging in the policy making process as the Scottish Government sets out its plans for independence, as well as building a stronger dialogue with more regular engagement with Holyrood. This will ensure that PPA Scotland member’s voices are heard, and our sector recognised as a key cultural and journalistic asset which underpins Scotland’s global reputation.

Royal Mail states that it was “well-developed contingency plans” but cautions that they cannot completely replace frontline workers, adding that customers should expect significant disruption. With the exception of Special Delivery, Royal Mail will not be delivering letters on strike days.

With the CWU warning that deliveries and collections will be shut down in large parts of the UK, Royal Mail has admitted that the four days of strike action will cause the company to make a loss in the current financial year.

The CWU has stated that Royal Mail’s offer of a 5.5% pay increase only amounts to a 2% increase due to inflation. Royal Mail believes that significant operational change is required to make the business sustainable in the long term

In a statement provided to the PPA, Royal Mail said: “After more than three months of talks, the CWU have failed to engage in any meaningful discussion on the changes we need to modernise, or to come up with alternative ideas. The CWU rejected our offer worth up to 5.5% for CWU grade colleagues, the biggest increase we have offered for many years. In a business that is currently losing £1 million pounds a day, we can only fund this offer by agreeing the changes that will pay for it.

“We are ready to talk further with CWU to try and avert damaging industrial action but, as we have consistently said, it must be about both change and pay. We have contingency plans in place and will be working hard to minimise disruption and get our services back to normal as soon as we can to keep people, businesses and the country connected.”

The PPA will meet with Royal Mail this week to discuss how the impact of industrial action on our members can be mitigated and minimised, and better understand Royal Mail’s preparation for the strike. We will impress upon Royal Mail the serious impact that the strike action will have on members’ subscriptions businesses, and the urgent need for the dispute with the CWU to be remedied as swiftly as possible.

The DMU requires statutory powers to introduce new anti-competition regulation for tech giants such as Google and Meta. The new regime will create benefits across UK’s digital economy, with potential benefits for publishers including a fairer digital advertising market.

Following an open letter from the PPA and a coalition of media industry organisations, including the News Media Association (NMA), BBC, and ITN, the Government committed in May’s Queen’s Speech to bring forward draft legislation, but without a timetable for implementation.

Last week, Sunak promised to table DMU legislation, saying publishers deserved ‘fair terms’ in negotiations with large platforms. This commitment was matched by Liz Truss, who told the Eastern Daily Press: “I will keep those commitments”.

The PPA is pleased to see both candidates for Conservative leader recognise the urgent need for fair competition in digital markets, and the need for Government to support publisher sustainability. Crucially, the commitment to bring forward legislation expeditiously will reduce the chance that the UK will fall behind other jurisdictions.

As well as pushing for the regime to become operational as soon as possible, the PPA also continues its work to ensure that the detail of the regulation will be effective in rebalancing the relationship between large platforms and publishers.

In a City AM article, recognising the huge benefits of the regime for businesses and consumers across the UK, Mordaunt wrote: “This will help ensure fair dealing for smaller businesses that have to use services like Google, Amazon and Facebook to reach their customers. It will also create benefits for users by allowing greater choice of how and where they access different services. Improved competition can also reduce prices for consumers.”

Mourdant, who is facing stiff competition from Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss to be the UK’s next Prime Minister, also promised to create a news bargaining code along the lines of what has been introduced in Australia. Such a code would mean that major platforms would be required to “reach a deal with news publishers to compensate them for their content being freely distributed across those services”. Should agreements not be reached, they would be settled through independent arbitration.

If given the keys to Number 10, the MP also stated she would create a a single Digital Department that would bring together teams that work across government on issues like online safety, digital competition, cyber security and data privacy. Mordaunt has also committed to supporting the Online Safety Bill.

The PPA welcomes this commitment to bringing forward the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill, and will be monitoring future hustings debates to better understand candidates’ positions on digital competition.

The Committee did not come out with a clear alternative to the BBC licence fee, but it noted that the binary argument around its continuation should be broadened.

The committee was also clear that the licence fee is viewed as regressive, but its use will continue, at least for now, as it is regarded as the 'best worst' option. However, an alternative funding mechanism is viewed as being necessary in the long term.

It also notes that using it to raise funds to the level the BBC requires would ‘hit the poorest hardest’.

The report rules out substituting the licence fee entirely for an advertising-funded model as this would provide insufficient income whilst decimating the revenues of other public service broadcasters.

The committee states that a full subscription-based model would likewise deliver inadequate revenues and face technical hurdles and accessibility barriers. Furthermore, a Government grant would risk undermining editorial independence and is explicitly not recommended by the committee.

The report notes that some form of public funding is required for the BBC. Potential alternatives explored by the committee include:

1. A universal household levy linked to council tax

2. A ring-fenced income tax

3. Reforming the current licence fee for low-income households

The committee also called for the BBC to publish a ‘bold new vision’ which will outline a strategic purpose that will allow it to navigate the challenges presented and contain costed options for future funding mechanisms, along with their impacts.

The PPA is currently in the process of feeding into the BBC Mid-Term Charter Review, and will actively engage in the debate around BBC funding to ensure that any licence fee alternatives that are adopted will not adversely impact the revenues of commercial publishers.

The review found that these safeguards continue to be the best way to protect people and businesses that use the universal service.

In its statement, which cited PPA evidence several times, Ofcom disagreed with suggestions from the PPA and others that price caps and binding efficiency targets should be introduced. Ofcom argued that as competition increases and the postal market continues to evolve, Royal Mail should have the commercial flexibility to deliver efficiency improvements and modernise its operations.

However, the regulator has strengthened its monitoring requirements (a proposal the PPA welcomed) to gain a deeper understanding of the financial sustainability and efficiency of the universal service. Ofcom states that its new framework provides a stable regulatory environment, and ensures that Royal Mail competes on a level playing field, allowing competition to drive benefits to postal users.

The PPA was pleased to see that, in her response to the consultation, Helen Hayes MP raised the issue of poor quality of service experienced by Mark Allen Group, a publisher in her constituency. As Hayes noted, significant subscription cancellations often correspond with unreliable postal delivery services.

The PPA will continue to engage with Ofcom as it develops its plans to strengthen monitoring requirements for Royal Mail.

It was expected that the Bill, which imposes a legal duty on online platforms to keep users safe, would finish its passage through the House of Commons on July 20 before going to the House of Lords.

However, the Bill will now not be allotted parliamentary time until September 6 at the earliest, which is the day after the UK parliament returns from recess. This has given rise to speculation that the Bill could be heavily amended or even scrapped entirely, with leadership candidates voicing concerns about the legislation.

Meanwhile, Damian Collins MP, the new Minister responsible for the Bill, reaffirmed the Government’s current position that specialist publications would not get the protections offered to general news publishers.

In response to a question from Press Gazette, the Minister said: “It is news providers, rather than specialist journals or magazines, that are within scope. We considered this during the joint committee on the bill actually, this matter has been discussed quite a lot.

“I think there needs to be a reasonably tight definition of what a news provider is in this case otherwise I think it could be extremely broad”.

This is an interesting development, given that the Joint Committee which scrutinised the Draft Bill, and which was chaired by Collins, specifically recommended that the Bill be amended to protect specialist publications.

The PPA looks forward to working with the new Minister and peers in the Lords to ensure that the landmark Bill will not restrict the UK public’s access to all forms of trusted, independently regulated journalism.