'No, I've got to get back to the snake pit. They'll all be wondering what happened to the little rabbit.'
Anders Schyman's afternoon had been tedious. He'd been in a meeting with two guys from the marketing department: a circulation analyst and a number-cruncher. Two economists whose job it was to interfere with everything that wasn't their business. They had both rejected his pitch for more investigative social journalism. The analyst had gone over his overhead transparencies and pointed at various charts, columns, and figures comparing the three largest evening tabloids, day by day.
'Here, for example, the rival sold exactly 43,512 copies more than
The number-cruncher got in on the act.
'That whole focus on heavy pieces in early December hasn't worked very well. We're hardly increasing our circulation at all compared with last year. And you've been using resources that were allocated for other items.'
Anders Schyman had been pensively twirling a pen while the economists talked. When they had finished, he answered circumspectly:
'Yes, you've got a point, of course. I mean, yes, in retrospect we can see that the lead in question wasn't particularly spectacular, but what was the alternative? The defense budget being overspent wasn't exactly the scoop of the decade, but we were the only ones to have it and got credit for it in other media. The rival had a special pull-out with Christmas gift bargains that day. And that TV celebrity who came clean about his eating disorder. From a circulation perspective, it would have been hard to beat that day with anything.'
The editor got up and walked over to the window facing the Russian Embassy. It really was completely gray out there.
'There was a lot going on early December. Remember?' he went on. 'That plane crashed coming in to Bromma Airport, the soccer star who got caught drunk driving and his club threw him out, a TV star was convicted of rape. Our circulation figures in December last year were enormous. And this year we're up. Even with investigative news stories, we've been reaching and improving upon last year. Losing the race against the rival on one particular day doesn't mean that our scrutiny of the powers that be is misguided. I think it's too early to draw that conclusion.'
'Our financial health is based on successful sales on particular days,' the number-cruncher remarked dryly.
'Well, superficially, yes. But look at the bigger picture,' Anders Schyman said and turned to face the two men. He must have given this speech nineteen times. 'We have to concentrate on building up our credibility with the readers. It's been neglected for a long time. We'll have big-selling front pages with blondes and car crashes, but we have to stick to our long-term investment in quality.'
'Well,' the number-cruncher said, 'it's really a matter of what kind of resources we invest.'
'Or how we invest them,' Schyman countered. 'Juggling the budget within the limits prescribed- I have the board's full endorsement to allocate resources. At my discretion.'
'And that is something that could well be worth looking at again,' the number-cruncher said.
Anders Schyman sighed. 'Do we have to talk about that again?' It seemed like the bean counters sat in his office every month and went on about this.
'I think we should,' said the number-cruncher, waving his transparencies in the air. 'We have the formula for a successful tabloid right here. It's in our data.'
A business degree and six months in the sales department and these jerks thought they had invented the business. The numbers were good; he just wasn't doing it according to the right theory.
'Well, I disagree. Why do you think I'm sitting here? Why don't they just put a computer in this office and save my salary? If all that matters is the formula? Tabloids and front pages aren't made by analyzing computer breakdowns of circulation figures. They're made with your heart. With experience. I wish you guys would concentrate on marketing. When are our circulation figures at their highest? How come? Could we change distribution? Should we change our printing schedule? Can we save time printing via satellite in other cities? You know about that stuff. Leave the editing to me.'
'We've already been through all that,' the number-cruncher replied shortly.
'Then do it again, and better,' said Schyman.
He'd let out a sigh when the men closed the door behind them. This kind of discussion could be quite rewarding, sometimes. It wouldn't have been possible ten years ago. In those days there was a sharp dividing line between the marketing department and the editors. Now he saw it as his job to at least build a few bridges between the Numbers and the Words. The marketing people mustn't think that they could start dictating the editorial content. But he needed them. He was sure about that. He knew that the circulation statistics for separate issues were extremely important; he spent many hours every week going over the figures with the circulation analyst. But that didn't mean the number-crunchers should try to do his job.
A tabloid's circulation is an extremely sensitive mechanism affected by a near infinite number of factors. Every morning around 4 A.M., analysts come in to calculate the number of copies to be sent to the thousands of outlets around the country. All the basic variables would already be in the computer: the season, the day of the week, holidays. If it was going to rain, for example, the copies were moved from the beach kiosks to the IKEA stores. People did their weekly shopping on Thursdays and would buy the paper then. So, more papers to the supermarkets on Thursdays. And if it was the Christmas holidays and people were on the roads, they would increase the number of copies along the highways.
A big event in a small place would generate localized stories and increase local sales. It was then up to the analysts to figure it out; not just add ten percent across the board. For a kiosk in the sticks that normally sold ten copies, ten percent would mean one extra copy. There you would have to increase the circulation by four hundred percent.
The last factor of the circulation breakdown was what was going on the front page. It was of marginal importance, unless the King got married or there was a plane crash.
Besides the circulation breakdown, other variables were involved. If a big story broke up north, the analyst might have to make a quick decision to get extra planes to deliver the papers. This was obviously a financial question: How much the air delivery would cost compared with the revenue of the extra newspapers sold. But a disappointed reader who went to the rival instead was also worth taking into consideration. Usually they put on the extra plane.
Schyman sat down in front of his computer and logged into the TT news agency's database. He quickly scrolled through the menu of cable copy that had been filed over the past twenty-four hours. There were a couple of hundred items, covering sports, domestic, and international news. All Swedish newsdesks rely on this wire copy. Their selection of both domestic and international news is governed by what TT puts out.
Anders Schyman thought back to another of the number-cruncher's lectures. The demographics were lousy. He presented the Reader, a standardized profile of the
The next category was called Loyal Readers, a group of people who would buy the paper several times a week. If these Loyal Readers stopped buying the paper just one time a week, it would have a disastrous effect on the circulation. That's how the crisis started a couple of years ago. Now they were working toward finding a new readership. Anders Schyman was sure they were succeeding, but these new readers had not yet supplanted the Man in a Cap. But it was only a matter of time. He needed senior staff with a new way of thinking. They couldn't go on relying on men over 45 to make the paper. Anders Schyman knew this, and he was clear how he would go about making the changes that had to be made.
