BECTU NEC Report to 2003 Conference appendix F: Stage Screen & Radio: editorial and financial overview
Stage Screen & Radio is, first and foremost, the official journal of BECTU. It exists, therefore,- to promote the union to its members
- to act as a link between the union and its members, and a link between members
- to promote the union within the industries in which it organises and to the media.
In doing this the editorial policy aims to further the union's industrial strategy, while remaining within its allocated budget.
Editorial direction
The editorial direction is informed by an awareness that the union needs to keep all of its members on board in order to remain an effective industrial force and, indeed, maintain the union's income.
Some members are union members on principle, regularly attend branch meetings and conference and spend a very generous amount of their time effectively fighting for a better working life for others. There are other members who never attend their branch meetings and view the union as a professional association and insurance policy, to call on in times of trouble. Most members are probably somewhere in between. All of our members are important to the union, and so Stage Screen & Radio has to cater for all these shades of opinion.
It is important that it does so as it is the 'flagship' of the union: previous research has established that it is the one regular communication that the union has with all its members. And for those members who in their thousands do not turn up to branch meetings, it may be the only regular contact many of them have with the union.
So the journal must aim to offer something for everyone.
Industrial
Since the whole point of a union journal is to be the official journal of the union, its main coverage is industrial. In close consultation and cooperation with the divisions of the union it reports on industrial developments, disputes and events that have an impact on our members.
The thrust of this reporting is to help build general support for the union's policies and actions. On occasion it can take this further and achieve results not possible through industrial action alone. For example, the freelance divisions regularly inform reluctant companies that if they do not pay outstanding monies to freelance members they may be added to the Ask First list. Quite often the mere suggestion is sufficient.
However, much greater and more effective use could be made of the journal by the union if it was factored into industrial campaigns at an early stage of strategic planning.
Professional/technical
Members take pride in their professions and the industries in which they work. Many have made it clear over the years that they expect their union journal to address itself to their professional concerns. We have responded to this in two ways. One is that when looking at more overtly political issues we attempt to find an angle to which our members can relate more closely. For example when covering international solidarity with liberation struggles, publishing a general overview of the political situation usually provokes a response of "What's this got to do with me?" from some quarters. Therefore there is a tighter focus on that country's equivalent of our members: media workers locked up; restrictions on broadcasting; destruction of their workplaces; a theatre operating under threat of official harassment.
The other response is to provide subject matter of professional interest. The technology section reports new gadgets of use in film, broadcasting or theatre. The Masterclass series covers many technical issues taught by BBC Training and Development, and is written by experts in their field.
Link
It is stated above that another aim of the magazine is to provide a link between the members themselves and while members do contribute articles to the magazine, their own forum is the letters page where they are able to respond to articles in the magazine or raise other issues of concern. The journal's free speech policy for the letters page has not been universally popular but continues to be defended.
All of the above have the effect of promoting the union within the BECTU industries and the media. The magazine circulates far more widely than solely the membership and copies are automatically sent to the press. Articles are regularly picked up by the media, and we have had responses to the Masterclass series from as far afield as Australia.
The finances
As stated at the outset, the magazine has to achieve its editorial objectives within budget, and the budget is more complex than it may first appear.
The magazine's production costs total £160,000-£180,000 a year. Its budget last year and this year was, however, £100,000. The £60,000-£80,000 difference has to be found through advertising revenue.
Contrary to popular belief, advertisers do not advertise on the basis of the size of a publication's readership, but the readership profile. For example, someone selling sound equipment given a choice between a 2,000 circulation magazine and a 20,000 circulation magazine would always select the smaller one if its 2,000 readers were all sound recordists and the larger readership contained none.
From an advertising viewpoint, Stage Screen & Radio has a problematic readership profile. Unlike, for example, the journals of Equity, the Musicians' Union or the Directors' Guild of America, it does not have a narrow profile but a very diverse one. Of 30,000 members no more than a few thousand could be put into any individual craft category, so the aforementioned sound equipment company would only be interested in perhaps 10% of the readership.
The other factor is the "unique selling point": what makes this magazine different from all the others? Alongside its status as the official journal of the film, broadcasting and entertainment union, our large number of freelance film and broadcasting members is one of our strongest cards as advertisers find them very hard to reach.
It is, however, indisputable that any magazine's editorial has an effect, for good or ill, on its advertising revenue. Previous advertising agencies have regularly stated that filling the magazine with technical articles and jettisoning its industrial coverage would make a big difference to advertising revenue. However, it would also remove the whole point of the magazine's existence.
The policy has therefore been to find a middle way. Industrial reporting remains the main focus of the magazine and - as much for the members as for the advertising - several pages of technical coverage can also be found in every issue.
There have been suggestions that by playing down the industrial reporting and increasing other coverage such as film reviews and so on, and expanding the size and readership of the magazine, that profits (or at least break-even) could be achieved.
In my view such expansion would require investment of at least half a million a year which would have to be in anticipation of advertising revenue, rather than after receiving confirmed bookings. For mass newsstand sales there would have to be an expensive marketing campaign and it would need high front-end investment (i.e. paying staff or freelances to provide the copy, plus staff or freelances in an expanded production department, plus printing far more magazines than would be sold).
The dangers of this strategy are two-fold. First, any such magazine would have no unique selling point and may be seen as a pale imitation of existing established titles in the market. Second, it would no longer be carrying out the role it was set up to do. Contracting out the operation would also mean losing in-house editorial control. It is therefore not considered a viable option.
Finances in 2001-2002
In previous years the journal has brought the union more than £100,000 in advertising revenue but in 2001 advertising revenue collapsed, the advertising agency terminated its contract with BECTU and a new agency, Cabbell, was hired at short notice at 37.5% commission. They put very little effort into sales with inevitably poor results. On my return from maternity leave it was established that the agency was unlikely to improve and so a new agency, Acorn, was hired from the June 2002 issue onwards. The new agency (on 25% commission) have had more success and I am delighted to state that their first three issues were on average within budget based on the expenditure of the July/August issue.
Their work has been made more difficult by the fact that no effort was made last year to win advance bookings from the major industry advertisers such as Sennheiser, Sony etc who book a year's advertising in advance. This has meant that every issue this year has started from a very low advertising base. A lot of work is currently going into this. However, further pressure is being exerted on Acorn to meet its given target of £10,500 per issue (or £8,000 after commission excluding VAT) and they have now taken on another salesperson to work on the magazine.
The commission rate is a vital element of the journal's finances. At 37.5% commission, nearly £13,000 is needed to produce £8,000 after commission excluding VAT. At 25% about £10,500 is required.
A further factor is page yield: the rate at which advertising is sold. I maintain a rule of a minimum 60% editorial to a maximum 40% advertising in the magazine, so the £10,500 per issue revenue required has to fit into 40% - 11.2 pages - of the magazine, i.e. a page yield of £1,190 per page.
Other initiatives
While large scale changes are not contemplated, three smaller scale initiatives are possible if the time resources could be found.
- Stage Screen & Radio syndication service
For minimal outlay, in-house generated material could be syndicated to targeted publications outside the UK for a monthly or annual syndication subscription of several hundred pounds. - Building subscriptions
The journal has about 40 subscribers without ever having tried to sell subscriptions. Consideration could be given to building up subscriptions as each one brings £20 (UK) - £25 (overseas) a time to BECTU. - Targeted newsstand sales
It may be feasible to sell the magazine at targeted outlets - such as the NFT bookshop, the National Museum of Photography, Cinema & Television, the Cinema Bookshop and so forth. This would be less wasteful (fewer to print, fewer unsold magazines to throw away) and likely to be more successful in that the clientele are more likely to have an interest in its contents. This would only be viable if handled by a distributor.
Conclusion
It is clear that Stage Screen & Radio has a central role in promoting the union. Our industrial success is belittled if our members are not aware of just how much their union achieves on their behalf. The industrial focus is fundamental, but it has to be acknowledged that there is a financial price to pay for it. The mission is to keep this cost at an acceptable level while maximising the political and industrial benefits. I believe we are now back on track to achieving this.