The future of the not-very-long-ago overhauled publishing industry trade mag Press Gazette is looking a little wobbly after majority shareholder Matthew Freud announced he was "reviewing his ownership of the business", adding that he "is no longer prepared to fund the title long term".
Freud seems to be pissed off that the newspaper industry has shunned the Press Gazette's annual industry awards event, which was an important revenue stream for the industry weekly. The British Press Awards have been somewhat controversial in recent years, mainly because they became such a raucous affair, and last year several major newspaper groups refused to participate, reducing the credibility of the event. Now some of the major newspaper owners are considering setting up a rival awards, which is seemingly what has pissed Freud off.
There may be another agenda at play here too. Those who attended last year's revamped British Press Awards agreed it was a much better event, which is why Freud and co-owner Piers Morgan are said to be especially annoyed that certain newspaper owners are still considering setting up rival awards. The Guardian's Roy Greensdale says Morgan reckons that the newspaper owners are in fact turning their backs on the British Press Awards not because of its troubled recent history, but because they like the idea of buggering up the business ventures of top PR man Freud.
Greensdale quotes Morgan thus: "I am extremely sad that the future of Press Gazette is being determined by personal agendas. Matthew Freud has pumped money into the magazine, adding to both the quantity and the quality of its content. As for the awards, he and I deliberately stayed away from the ceremony last year, which was generally agreed by the industry to have been the best in many years. Now we find that an alternative is being organised by a former Press Gazette editor, Philippa Kennedy, who knows how important the awards are to the commercial viability of the magazine. Without the awards, given that the industry does not see fit to advertise in the magazine, there is no profit in running Press Gazette. This is a very serious situation."
But Greensdale adds that the big newspaper owners reckon they are being blackmailed into supporting the Press Gazette's awards, adding that when he bought the magazine Freud said the awards were not central to his plans to turn round the trade title's fortunes. And therefore, he concludes, those owners are unlikely to be affected by Freud's latest demands. How he responds when they call his bluff, remains to be seen.